When I was in Gainesville a good friend gave me a new book: The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day." As he had been a student of mine and I had introduced him to the spirituality and writings of Dorothy Day, he knew I would love this book. It is a thick one and so did not travel to St. Louis with me, but it is a fascinating look at the spiritual struggles and growth of a woman who is still influencing American spirituality today. The Catholic Worker houses still exist and the paper still is only one cent! This book is edited by Robert Ellsberg.(Marquette University Press, 2008). Dorothy wrote in February of 1961, "Today I thought of a title for my book, The Duty of Delight, as a sequel to The Long Loneliness> I was thinking as one gets older (Dorothy was born in 1897), we are tempted to sadness, knowing life as it is here on earth, the suffering, the Cross. And how we must overcome it daily, growing in love, and the joy which goes with loving." Dorothy Day's cause has been introduced for canonization; she will be a very human saint and her diaries show us her own struggles! Do I think of duty as a delight?
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