Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and though not formally canonised as a saint in the Catholic church, is recognised by many to be one. I first heard of her when I was pointed to a series of YouTube videos called 'Who Cares About The Saints?' by Loyola Productions and saw the below video: After a quick Google about her, I was challenged and amazed by so many Dorothy Day quotes, like the one at the top of this post - and her autobiography is now on my "to-read list"! Born in Brooklyn in 1897, her family later moved to San Francisco and Day was baptised Episcopalian. When she left college from the University of Illinois, she became a journalist in New York City particularly writing on social action type subjects, and getting involved in women's suffrage and peace movements. In her personal life, she went through numerous love affairs, a failed marriage, a suicide attempt and an abortion. But with the birth of her daughter, Tamar, in 1926, Day converted to Catholicism (ending her marriage at the time) and embraced faith and religion. She then increasingly sought to fuse her life and the importance she saw of social action and standing up for the disadvantaged, with her faith. In 1932 she met Peter Maurin and together they started a publication called the Catholic Worker and opened a house of hospitality during the Great Depression, eventually growing into many similar houses and farm communities across the US and elsewhere. Dorothy Day was hot-headed, sarcastic, ferocious, passionate and, above all, trying her very best to love with ever more love. In reply to someone who told her she was hot-headed, she replied, "I hold more temper in one minute than you will hold in your entire life." I like her. She saw that there were problems and she sought to love and help as she could - making more and better ways that she could when needed. But she also refused to stay quiet about what caused those problems and fought against the systems and injustices imprisoning people in poverty, vulnerability and helplessness. She knew what it means to love God with all her heart and soul and mind and strength - using every skill she had, and every way she could think of to show that God's love meant the world shouldn't be how it is, but needs to be different. "What we would like to do is change the world - make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do....We can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbour, to love our enemy as well as our friend." ~ Dorothy Day To those who knew her, and even to me today after reading only so briefly about her, she challenges, scolds, impassions and encourages to love more fully. She asks me what I'm doing; how I'm living out my faith; who I'm loving despite the difficulty and the effort in doing so; who and what I'm standing up for; who and what I'm standing up against! By declaring someone a saint, the church 'holds them up as an example of authentic Christian discipleship for a certain time and place' [1]. This is Day's impact on Christianity and the difference she made, not just during her life, to all the people involved in and reached through the communities she built and the love she encouraged and enacted, but also to Christians today. She gave an example of someone who didn't let anything she'd done in the past, or anything people said against her, or even the immense task that loving radically posed in front of her, get in her way. She sought always to follow God's call to love, regardless of where that took her. A lesson we all need to take on board today if we are to be authentic disciples of Jesus Christ. [1] DEACON TOM CORNELL, quoted in article in Crux, Friends of Dorothy Day applaud progess in sainthood cause. Available at: https://cruxnow.com/church/2016/04/26/friends-of-dorothy-day-applaud-progress-in-sainthood-cause/ [Accessed Jan 2017]
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To any non-theology students, the word ‘theology’ might conjure up some intimating images: the intense study of God within the halls of academia, a subject that’s confined to lectures and seminars, where only serious study can do it justice. But really theology is an essential part of the Christian faith. It should give meaning to our faith, enabling us to deepen our understanding of who God is and breathing new life into how we live in the real world. Here are 5 reasons why we should all be engaging with theology. 1. Theology means thinking about who God is and what it means to believe in God’s existence. Therefore, anyone who thinks about God, or relates to God in any way, or lives a certain way based on a belief in God is already doing theology. 2. Theology is something we do. People often think that theology is really wordy: ‘I couldn’t do theology’ because I don’t really like reading, or I don’t have complicated thoughts, or I’m no good at long arguments. But we don’t just think or talk theology – we do it; as part of our worship – the songs we sing, both musically and lyrically, what our places of worship look like, what customs and rituals we take part in, what creeds and/or prayers we say, the way we interact with other people in our churches. We also do theology in any conversations we might have with other people about God. And we do theology through the many varied ways that Christians live out their faith through their actions and through demonstrating God’s love in the world. All of this is doing theology; so really, we all do it, we just don’t necessarily know that we’re doing it. 3. As Christians, it’s important we engage with theology because theology surrounds our whole experience of faith So having decided that theology is important because we do it – it’s important that we should do it... intentionally. Intentionally doing theology will change the way we live, and the ways we think about God and our relationship to him. It’s important in everything, that we live intentionally, otherwise we are simply “going through the motions” of life. In our Christian journeys, we want to be seeking God in everything we do, and theology is a way for us to do that. Through actually reflecting on the views we hold about God, and the way we live because of them, and the customs we enact, and the ways we talk about them, we find that we understand both ourselves and our faith more. We then know why we believe what we believe, and our relationship with God is strengthened by that. 4. Theology is part of being in relationship with God When we’re in relationship with someone, we’re constantly learning more about them. Even when we’ve known them for years and years, and we could answer a million questions about them, there are still new things for us to learn. Like the way they respond to a new situation, or the way they show a new extent to which they love you, or any number of things. Part of being in relationship is this constant openness and desire to learn more about (and draw closer to) the other. And in the case of our relationship with God, this learning and drawing closer is theology! 5. When we are more aware of our own views and why we hold them, we are more able to hear other – different – views about God. Because our own thoughts on God go deeper, and we see them running through everything we do and say, we are more able to communicate our beliefs. And therefore when somebody believes something different, we don’t feel that they are threatening what we believe, and in turn we don’t need to try to threaten what they believe. In this way, we can remain in conversation with people who believe different things to us. Being able to talk together about difference is what breaks down prejudices and builds up peace and friendship between people groups – something increasingly important in our world today. So theology is important because we’re all already doing it, and becoming aware of that strengthens our faith, our relationship with God, the ways we live and decisions we make, and the ways we engage with other people about belief. Doing theology is an integral part of any Christian’s journey – whether we are theology students or not! The above is a post I wrote for the Student Christian Movement blog and the original post can be found here!
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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