The Good Works of Dorothy Day

I’m struck by the final sentence we hear in today’s Gospel: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven. It reminds me of a great prayer by St John Henry Newman:—

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine. It will be you, shining on others through me. Let me thus praise You the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.

We are called to radiate Christ. How do we radiate Christ? We radiate Christ when we have a deep, real relationship with him. When we are in Christ and Christ is in us, then our lives are transformed. We submit our whole selves to him and when this happens people will begin to see Christ in all we do and say. They won’t be saying of us ‘What a good person! What a saint! Isn’t she good?’ No, they will be encountering God in us.

A great example of someone who radiated Christ was the American, Dorothy Day. She was born in 1897, in Brooklyn, and died on November 29 1980, at the age of 83. She was a tireless advocate for workers’ rights, civil rights and the marginalised. She actively protested against wars (including the Vietnam War) and nuclear weapons, often engaging in civil disobedience that led to multiple arrests. The late Pope Francis recognised her in 2015 for her passion for justice and her ability to build a better future based on her faith.

Despite a complex early life (that included an abortion and a bohemian, sometimes chaotic lifestyle)  her conversion and subsequent life of voluntary poverty and service makes her a relatable, modern figure of holiness. She famously said: ‘Don’t call me a saint — I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.’ Her cause for canonisation was officially opened in 2000. Her good works were only possible because of her life of prayer, fasting and the Sacrament: ‘Without prayer, how grim a journey,’ was another of her memorable sayings. She let her light shine before others so that we saw her good works, and gave glory to our Father who is in Heaven.