All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day (review)

All those who care about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement owe a profound debt of gratitude to Robert Ellsberg, the editor of these letters. Ellsberg came to the Worker from Harvard as a teenager, knew Dorothy in her last years, became the editor of The Catholic Worker, and went on to a distinguished career as an editor and publisher. This volume completes a massive and crucial project begun soon after her death in 1980 with the 1983 publication of her selected writings. Miss Day's letters and journals were sealed for twenty-five years. Since they became available in 2005 Ellsberg has edited, with great care and remarkable speed, her diaries (2008), and now her letters. The book is handsome and readable, the notes helpful and unobtrusive. With the publication of the diaries and letters, Dorothy Day comes into clear focus. We can say with reasonable certainty that there are not likely to be any major revelations of her character in the future. The tone and preoccupations of her published writings and her more private writing are identical. Her voice is real, thoroughly unfalse, utterly genuine.

Consider these samples: To her estranged lover, the father of her child, who refused to marry, she wrote, "But I remember all the things you have done for me, the dearness and kindness of all the little everyday things you did. I should like to hold you and kiss you, and kiss you, but I can't and my arms ache for you. I do love you" (24). To Gordon Zahn, one of the great leaders of the American Catholic peace movement, who was discouraged, she wrote, "As a convert, I never expected much of the bishops. In all history popes and bishops and father abbots seem to have been blind and power loving and greedy. I never expected leadership from them. It is the saints that keep appearing all thru history who keep things going. What I do expect is the bread of life and down thru the ages there is that continuity" (351). To William Miller, her biographer and the historian of the movement, when it was suggested The Worker archives at Marquette might be the recipient of Rockefeller money, she wrote, "Surely you do not forget the Ludlow Colorado massacre, and the recent Attica tragedy. The Rockefeller name continues to be disgraced. We cannot be associated with it" (429). To the President of Catholic University, in refusing an honorary degree she wrote, "I have a deep conviction that we must stay as close to the poor, as close to the bottom as we can, to walk the little way, as St. Therese has it" (374). To two young Catholic Workers, nearly fifty years her junior, late in life, she wrote, "You see I am very much with you . . . We all love you so much. Such friendships the Lord has sent us in this life. God is good. We can't thank him enough. Thank you, thank you, Lord for everything but friendships especially. We are not alone" (418).

This book reveals a portrait of a remarkable Christian, one who throughout her life worked fiercely and relentlessly to "put on Christ," to conform her life to his. From the beginning in 1933 until her death she chose to live with the poor and serve them, tirelessly performing the works of mercy. She spoke up faithfully and courageously against violence and oppression. All of this was rooted in and sustained by the prayer life of the church.

The American Catholic Church is floundering and deeply in need of heroes and models. This great and holy woman should be one of them.