Dorothy Day's Autobiography

There is much paradox in the process whereby Day's religious faith grew and deepened. Day's Catholicism, once it clearly emerged, was a strict one, based on conservative moral views. Yet her pregnancy and the birth of the daughter which took her fully into the territory of faith were marked on the surface by anything but religious elements. She became pregnant by a man to whom she was not married, a man who was staunchly opposed to the Catholic religion, and she gave birth to her child out of wedlock.

Nevertheless, as Day declares, the pregnancy and birth forced her to make decisions she had been putting off, or not even considering, for the first wayward part of her life. This is not to say that those earlier years had been ones particularly drenched in sin. What Day experienced was more confusion and aimlessness than dissolute behavior. She simply did not have a purpose in life before her daughter was born. She did not have another person for whom she felt responsible, for whom she cared more than she cared for herself.

This is not to say either that she was not active in those pre-moth

. . .
child baptized, cost what it may. I knew that I was not going to have her floundering through many years as I had done, doubting and hesitating, undisciplined and amoral. . . . For myself, I prayed for the gift of faith (136). Because of Forster's anti-religious attitude, Day knew that she would be choosing God over the father of her child: "Forster would have nothing to do with religion or with me if I embraced it" (137). Nevertheless, the spiritual condition of her daughter and her own soul ultimately took precedent over her fear of being a mother alone. What turned Day toward God finally was the overflowing love she felt for her new-born child: "The final object of this love and gratitude was God. No human creature could receive or contain so vast a flood of love and joy as I often felt after the birth of my child" (139). And yet Day sensed that one did not love God in the same way that one loved other human beings. She realized that this love for God had to be expressed in "the need to worship, to adore" (139). The nature of the worship which Day sought and found in the church and in the activism of the church, ironically, was shaped by her earlier social and political involvement. She notes that other religious-minded
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Call Life, Catholic Church, Day God, Jesus Testament, Church Christ, Catholic Worker, Nevertheless Day, Sister Aloysia, Dorothy Day's, Day's Catholicism, relationship god, love god, social political, catholic church, father child forster, day found, christ visible, god loved, catholic worker, pregnancy birth, day's relationship god, social political activism, church christ visible, birth child,
Approximate Word count = 1632
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Dorothy Day Autobiography