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Through Dorothy Day’s monthly “On Pilgrimage” columns from The Catholic Worker, this volume offers a unique chronicle on the 1960s, a tumultuous decade marked by the Cuban Revolution, Vatican II, the struggle for Civil Rights, Vietnam protests, the rise of the United Farmworkers, and dramatic cultural change which reverberates even today. Journalist Day surveyed these developments from the vantage point of her life among the poor, her life-long struggle for peace and justice, and her daily efforts to seek God in her daily life. For those wondering what Day would be doing today, this volume—drawn from a decade that in many ways mirrors our own—provides an invaluable guide.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was the co-founder of The Catholic Worker, a movement and a newspaper promoting the radical message of the Gospel. With the Vatican’s acceptance of her cause for canonization she received the title Servant of God. Robert Ellsberg, publisher of Orbis Books, served as a managing editor of The Catholic Worker and had edited Day’s selected writings, diaries, and selected letters.
“On Pilgrimage” is a work of profound ascetical spirituality. One does not have to be Catholic to perform the corporal works of mercy or to risk imprisonment in opposition to systemic injustice and war.” –Rachelle Linner , Catholic News Service
“Don’t dive into this book as one does a novel. Read it slowly, musing on an essay for a week, with a pencil in hand. For Day challenges us to make the connections between a spirituality of love for God and a love for all.” — Rosalie G. Riegle, Sojourners
“Dorothy Day sets the standard of modern discipleship to the nonviolent Jesus. This collection of her Catholic Worker Columns reads like an updated Acts of the Apostles, or better St.Pauls own “On Pilgrimage” letters, May we all reach the standard she set and make an equally bold witness for the nonviolent Jesus.” — Rev. John Dear, author of They Will Inherit the Earth and executive director of www.beattidescenter.org
“As Robert Ellsberg notes, Dorothy Day ‘would prove to be unusually equipped to serve both as a witness and an engaged participant’ in the turbulence and growth of the 1960s. In this book, her clear and penetrating voice for nonviolence, voluntary poverty, the dignity of work, and the Works of Mercy can once again be ours to savor and move us to action…” –Amanda W.Daioisio a manageing editor of The Catholic Worker
“Here we have a running record of Dorothy Day’s life and work over the course of that hope-filled, heartbreaking decade of the 1960s: her early opposition to the war in Vietnam, her steadfast support of the civil rights movement and the farmworkers’ cause, her response to the Cuban Revolution and Vatican II, and her unswerving attention to the hardships of the poor. This remarkable collection points to the importance of Days writings for our lives here and now.” –Michael Baxter, Regis University
