One of the things I love about Virginia is the change of seasons, a phenomenon that’s especially vibrant during the fall. For me, the month of October is truly a celebration of the senses.
Trees turning crimson and gold provide a visual feast, leaves rustling underfoot sound the trumpet that life is passing, while cooling temperatures dance across brows that only weeks before bore beads of perspiration. The aroma of comfort food wafting from open kitchen windows is but a foretaste of mouthwatering dinners where apple and pumpkin pies serve as the grand finale.
This sensory panoply of beauty echoes the words of our Creator, who looked at all he had made and pronounced it good.
This is not to deny the existence of ugliness and evil, but to acknowledge that what detracts us from beauty is not what God made, but what we’ve created. When I become doubtful of our ability to overcome evil, I am reminded of a book about Dorothy Day that was written by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessey. Her book, “The World Will Be Saved by Beauty: Dorothy Day’s Message of Hope” offers a realistic look at a world where Dorothy Day found evidence of the sacred hidden in the mundane.
Rather than a starry-eyed denial of all that was ugly in the world, she immersed herself in its pain and discovered God, who captivated her heart. Anyone familiar with the life of Dorothy Day knows that the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement could hardly be accused of wearing rose-colored glasses, but as her granddaughter wrote, “Dorothy Day took on ugliness and found beauty everywhere, even where it did not exist.”
Committed to feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless, Dorothy could be found not only on her knees in church, but in the bathroom scrubbing toilets and in the barrios ministering to the forgotten and downtrodden. Exchanging a promising career as a journalist for that of housemother to prostitutes and drunkards, she was spiritually transformed, proving once again that how we begin the journey is less important than the way we end it.
A former communist, Dorothy had an abortion and lived with a man out of wedlock. Yet, like so many seekers before her, she began to question the path she was on, and after reading about the life of St. Teresa of Ávila, she discovered God and was eventually baptized a Catholic.
Wishing to entrust her daughter’s spiritual well-being to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, she pinned a medal of the Little Flower on her daughter’s shirt.
During the month of October, the Church celebrates the lives of these two great Carmelite saints, St. Thérèse of Lisieux (Oct. 1) and St. Teresa of Ávila (Oct. 15). One might wonder what Dorothy Day discovered in the lives of cloistered nuns that inspired her to re-evaluate her life, which was nothing like theirs.
By her own admission, Dorothy Day noted that when she first read “Story of A Soul” by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, she failed to see how the saint found eating what was put before her, enduring heat and cold, and taking her medicine examples of heroic virtue. She questioned how Thérèse remaining silent while the nun next to her splashed water on her face while doing laundry could be called mortification.
Only over time and with the grace of God was she able to appreciate the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse, recognizing what St. Teresa of Ávila meant when she said that God can be found among the pots and pans as well as in the chapel. Everything can be a source of grace when we recognize God in the events of everyday life.
Dorothy Day reminds us that faith without action is useless, so when temperatures dip, what will be our response? Will it be “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Or will I take an extra coat from my closet, gather scarves and gloves, and head to a nearby shelter to donate to those in need?
Unless reading the lives of saints leads to action, the world will remain forever unchanged. When hearts are changed, actions should follow, so that at the end of our lives, we too will hear God say, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Mt 25:35-36).
Barbara Hughes is an award-winning author, retreat facilitator and spiritual guide. She lives in Virginia Beach and can be reached at [email protected].