Day’s Birthday and Upcoming Novena

admin • November 8, 2021

November 8, 2021: Dorothy Day’s 124th birthday


Dorothy Day did not set out to become a saint, although she often quoted a famous statement that “The only tragedy in life is not to be a saint.”


She simply spent a lifetime attuning herself to hear God’s voice. The pilgrimage of her daily life was oriented by Jesus’ teachings as she pursued a call to belong fully to the Body of Christ.


On December 8, 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, while on assignment as a journalist reporting on a national Hunger March and a gathering of poor farmers, Dorothy Day prayed to discern her vocation as a Catholic. She attended Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.:

“There I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and with anguish, that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.” ― from The Long Loneliness

On her return to New York City, the answer to her prayer was waiting in the person of an itinerant Frenchman and worker scholar named Peter Maurin. Their meeting led to the founding of the Catholic Worker movement, which to this day continues to open up ways to practice the Church’s social teachings.

We invite Dorothy Day Guild members and friends to join in a novena of gratitude, giving thanks for Dorothy Day’s valiant response to God’s call. Beginning on November 29 (the anniversary of her death), the novena will continue until December 8, when the Dorothy Day Guild of the Archdiocese of New York will mark the conclusion of the local diocesan phase of the Cause.

With a special Mass at New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (live-streamed at https://saintpatrickscathedral.org/live ) at 7:30 pm on December 8, 2021, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, we will celebrate the send-off of the evidence of Dorothy Day’s holiness, amassed by the Guild, to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. We rejoice that the Church embraces her witness to God’s love as a model of holiness.

Over the course of the novena, we will reflect on Dorothy’s generous, whole-hearted acceptance of God’s call by each day looking at a particular facet of her discipleship – what biographer Robert Ellsberg referred to as the “distinctive features of her holiness.”

Each one of us, too, has a unique calling; and God loves each of us as a whole person. As we give thanks for Dorothy Day’s life – and for the Church’s recognizing of her holiness – let us ask her to join us on our pilgrimages. Servant of God Dorothy Day, intercede for us; pray that we grow in courage and faith to follow our own path to holiness.

Archived Comments

Jane Morrissey, ssj says:

November 11, 2021 at 4:54 pm

Thank you for all you are doing to tie the bonds between the communities and names of saints in heaven and on earth and our experience of the Catholic Church.

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Monica Cornell, 1942-2025: A Worker for the Lay Apostolate and Friend of Dorothy Day

By Casey Mullaney • August 16, 2025
Dear Friends, All of us at the Guild were saddened to learn of the death of Monica Ribar Cornell , founding member of and advisor to the Dorothy Day Guild, on Friday, August 8th.

Summer News and Updates from the Guild!

By Casey Mullaney • August 5, 2025
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, We hope this missive finds you well! The heat has finally broken in South Bend, and all of us at the Worker are grateful for the relief as we’ve passed the mid-point of the summer season. For many of us in the Midwest and the Northeast, this time of year is marked by transitions and heightened activity as we begin to bring in stone fruit and tomatoes from our gardens or look towards the start of a new school year. With that in mind, we have a lot of great things to share with you this month, including new resources, song lyrics, events, and two peace and justice action items! Dorothy on the Small Screen: Friday, August 1st marked the third anniversary of the death of Tom Cornell , former editor of the The Catholic Worker, founding member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and close personal friend of Dorothy. Tom met his wife Monica (pictured here at their wedding, where Dorothy was among the guests!) at the Worker in New York in the 1950s; the Cornells passed on their vocation of hospitality and Gospel nonviolence to their children, Tommy and Deirdre, and to the hundreds of others they welcomed into their homes and lives over the course of nearly sixty years of marriage.

"The Best Revolutionary Technique:" Dorothy on the Works of Mercy, the Mystical Body of Christ, and more

By Casey Mullaney • July 8, 2025
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, Greetings on what for many of us in North America is already shaping up to be another hot, sticky summer day! We hope that those of you in hot climates are staying cool and are finding creative ways to support those in your towns and cities who are unsheltered from the elements. Emma, a member of our Catholic Worker community in South Bend, washes out empty milk jugs, fills them halfway with clean water, and freezes them overnight. In the morning, she fills them the rest of the way and hands them out to guests at our drop-in center to help them stay cool and hydrated throughout the afternoon. If you regularly walk or drive past homeless community members on your commute, we encourage you to pack an extra sealed bottle of water to give away on days like this. Here in the United States, we just celebrated the Fourth of July, a holiday which admittedly doesn’t mean very much to many of those who admire Dorothy and seek to follow Christ as she did. Dorothy practiced a very different kind of revolution than the kind which is celebrated by military parades and fireworks displays. In 1940, she wrote , “we consider the spiritual and corporal Works of Mercy and the following of Christ to be the best revolutionary technique and a means of changing the social order rather than perpetuating it. Did not the thousands of monasteries, with their hospitality change the entire social pattern of their day?” To all those who undertake the responsibility of sheltering the homeless, giving drink to the thirsty, and all works of mercy in the heat, thank you for these revolutionary acts! Summer events: Our Guild’s online and in-person summer programming is in full swing as of this week! As a reminder, we are running TWO book clubs this summer, one in English and one in Spanish. Our English-language club is reading The Long Loneliness and has already had two meetings, but it’s not too late to sign up!
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