Rather than protest at a speech, I prefer to support life by looking to the life of Dorothy Day for my guidance. She was a devout catholic journalist who became a social activist and worked to create a better world by using the corporal works of mercy as a basis for her life.The corporal works of mercy:
- feeding the hungry
- giving drink to the thirsty
- clothing the naked
- offering hospitality to the homeless
- caring for the sick
- visiting the imprisoned
- burying the dead
Dorothy Day did have an abortion as a young woman, just like many young women today. She later regretted it and spent the rest of her life supporting life by helping those who were poor, homeless, and hungry. She founded the Catholic Worker movement and opened a "house of hospitality" in the slums of New York City in 1933. To this day similar "houses of hospitality" exist all over the United States.
Do we work to find common ground among those with whom we disagree? Do we reach out in love to those who make us uncomfortable?
"What we would like to do is change the world. And by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor....we can to a certain extent change the world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that is ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, "there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our herarts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend."
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