Dorthy Day ( 1897- 1980 )

Dorthy on: Action and True Revolution

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart.”

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

 “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

“I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.”

  “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

  “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.

 “God meant for things to be much easier than we have made them”

“It is we ourselves that we have to think about, no one else. That is the way the saints worked. They paid attention to what they were doing, and if others were attracted to them by their enterprise, why, well and good. But they looked to themselves first of all.”

graphic:  modern Icon by  Nicholas Brian Tsai

Dorthy Day

Dorthy one line Zingers



 “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. ”

“We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.”

“Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair.”

 “It is people who are important, not the masses.”

 “Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.”

“Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily. ”

“Charity is only as warm as those who administer it.”

“Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.”

“Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed. ”

Peter Maurin Social transformation and celtic monasticismm

Maurin's vision to transform the social order consisted of three main ideas:

1. Establishing urban houses of hospitality to care for the destitute.
2. Establishing rural farming communities to teach city dwellers agrarianism  and encourage a movement back to the land .
3. Setting up roundtable discussions in community centers in order to clarify thought and initiate action.

This vision was inspired by the early Celtic monastic communities that transformed Europe.

In His own words,

"Cult, Culture, and Cultivation"

"When the Irish scholars (monks) decided to lay the foundations

of medieval Europe, they established:Centers of Thought

 (monastic communities) in all the cities of Europe as far as

 Constantinople, where people could look for thought so they could

 have light. Houses of Hospitality where Christian charity were exemplified.

Agricultural Centers where they combined

(a) Cult - that is to say Liturgy

(b) with Culture - that is to say Literature

(c) with Cultivation - that is to say Agriculture. "

Peter Maurin (1877 - 1949 )

Peter Maurin an idealistic Roman Catholic social activist worked with Dorthy Day  in the slums of New York City establishing the  Catholic Workers Movement.

 He was born into a poor farming family in  southern France, where he was one of 24 children.  Maurin served in the Sillon  movement of Marc Sanger until he became disillusioned.  He briefly tried his hand at homesteading in  Saskatchewan. That ended when his partner was killed in a hunting accident.  He than traveled through out the eastern States for a few years, eventually settling in New York City. For a ten year period Maurin left his catholic faith,  "because I was not living as a Catholic should." 

In the mid-1920s, Maurin was working as a French tutor in the New York suburbs. It was at this time Maurin experienced a religious conversion. Inspired by the life of Francis of Assisi he ceased charging for his lessons and asked only that students give as they thought appropriate. During this portion of his life, he began composing the poetry that would later be called his Easy Essays

Peter Maurin  Dorothy Day meet for the first time  in December of1932.On returning to New York from Washington, D.C., where she had covered the Hunger March  for Commonwealth and America magazines.   she walked into her apartment to find Maurin waiting her in the kitchen. He had read some of her articles and had been told by then editor of Commonwealth, George Shluter, to look her up and exchange ideas.

                                                                                                      

The first four months were spent mainly with  Maurin ,  sharing ideas, synopses of books and articles, and analyzing all facets of daily life through the lens of his intellectual system. He suggested since she had a journalistic back ground, she start a newspaper, to "bring the best of Catholic thought to the man in the street in the language of the man in the street". May 1 1933, the heart of the Great Depression saw the 1st edition of  the  Catholic Worker hit the streets.

Maurin's ideas served as the inspiration for the creation of "houses of hospitality" for the poor, the agrarian endeavors of the Catholic Worker farms, and the regular "roundtable discussions for the clarification of thought" that began taking place shortly after the publication of the first issue of CW

.Maurin believed the Catholic Worker should stress life in small agricultural communities. As he liked to say, “there is no unemployment on the land.” He lived  much of his life in Easton Pennsylvania where he worked on  Maryfarm the first Catholic Worker-owned farming commune.

During the 30's and early forties he spent much of his time taking  part in many the Catholic Worker sponsered protests, traveling and lecturing  extensively at parishes, colleges, and meetings across the country, often in coordination with the speaking tours of Dorothy Day. 

 In 1944, Maurin began to lose his memory. His condition deteriorated until he died at Maryfarm on May 15, 1949.