I've heard that the burn-out rate for social workers is very high. Their idealism is sorely tested. But part of what makes Dorothy Day a likely saint was that she never lost her idealism or faith even though I've long suspected that the poor of a rich country are much harder on one's idealism than the poor from a poor country. Which makes Dorothy all the more impressive a figure. From November's Magnificat:
Dorothy [Day] didn't romanticize the poor. She told the correspondent that he had experienced "the bitterness of the poor, who cheat each other, exploit each other."
Dorothy once received a letter in which the correspondent wrote that he had taken in "a gentleman seemingly in need". He took him home, let the man have a nap, gave him a meal, and went through the want ads with him. After the man left, the good Samaritan found that his wallet was missing! Dorothy noted that such rejections aren't easy; the crushed heart can make us more compassionate or make us more bitter. "It was agony to go through such experiences," she wrote, "but the saints would only bow their heads and try not to judge...These things happen for our discouragement, for our testing..We are sowing the seed of love - and we are not living in the harvest time...We are indeed fools, as our Lord himself was who died for such a one as this." --G. Gneuhs
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