Poor for the right reasons
Day, Dorothy
THE LAST WORD Poor for the right reasons DOROTHY DAY The spiritual works of mercy are: to admonish the sinner, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear...
...No, as John Cogley has written, they are the destitute in every way, destitute of this world's goods, destitute of honor, of gratitude, of love, and they need so much, that we cannot take the works of mercy apart, and say I will do this one, or that one work of mercy...
...He ended his article as I shall end mine: "Every particle of Christ's divine charity is today more precious for your security—for your security, I say—than all the atom bombs in all the stockpiles...
...He pointed out that we have turned to state responsibility through home relief, social legislation, and Social Security, and we no longer practice personal responsibility for our brother, but are repeating the words of the first murderer, "Am I my brother's keeper...
...We must love to the point of folly, and we are indeed fools, as our Lord himself was who died for such a one as this...
...These were Peter's ideas, and they are indispensable for the performing of the works of mercy...
...He was a prophet with a social message and he wanted to reach the people with it...
...I took a gentleman seemingly in need of spiritual and temporal guidance into my home on a Sunday afternoon...
...They received no thanks—well then, God had to repay them...
...We are sowing the seeds of love, and we are not living in the harvest time so that we can expect a crop...
...But these things happen for our discouragement, for our testing...
...It is by the works of mercy that we shall be judged...
...And is it to be expected that virtue and destitution should go together...
...This article is excerpted from the November 4, 1949, Commonweal...
...In our fight against such a concept of Christian charity, we have been accused of lining up with Wall Street and private enterprise, and the rich opponents of state control and taxation...
...To get to the people, he pointed out it was necessary to embrace voluntary poverty, to strip yourself, which would give you the means to practice the works of mercy...
...Some years ago there was an article in Commonweal by Georges Bernanos...
...It was a matter of social enlightenment, Holy Mother the City taking over, Holy Mother the State taking the poor to herself, gathering them to her capacious bosom studded with the jewels of the taxation of the rich and the poor alike, the subtle war between church and state meanwhile going on at all times, in the field of education, charity, the family...
...Not that our passing the buck is as crude as all that...
...For anyone starting to live literally the words of the Fathers of the church, "the bread you retain belongs to the hungry, the dress you lock up is the property of the naked," "what is superfluous for one's need is to be regarded as plunder if one retains it for one's self," there is always a trial ahead...
...But, anarchists that we are, we want to decentralize everything and delegate to smaller bodies and groups what can be done far more humanly and responsibly through mutual aid, as well as charity, through Blue Cross, Red Cross, union cooperation, parish cooperation...
...Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was co-founder of the Catholic Worker...
...Our faith is taxed to the utmost and so grows through this strain put upon it...
...To be the least, to be the worker, to be poor, to take the lowest place and thus be the spark which would set afire the love of men toward each other and to God (and we can only show our love for God by our love for our fellows...
...I can only say that the saints would only bow their heads and not try to understand orjudge...
...To reach the man in the street you must go to the street...
...Let him have a nap on my bed, went through the want ads with him, made coffee and sandwiches for him, and when he left, I found my wallet had gone also...
...Peter Maurin was very much an apostle to the world today, not only to the poor...
...It is pruned again and again and springs up bearing much fruit...
...In the last fifteen years the all-encroaching state, as the bishops of the United States have called it, has gained the upper hand...
...This is expecting heroic charity of course...
...Our faith, more precious than gold, must be tried as though by fire...
...46...
...THE LAST WORD Poor for the right reasons DOROTHY DAY The spiritual works of mercy are: to admonish the sinner, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive all injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead...
...Here is a letter we received today...
...When Peter Maurin, the founder of the Catholic Worker, talked about the necessity of practicing the works of mercy, he meant all of them, and he envisioned houses of hospitality in poor parishes in every city of the country, where these precepts of Our Lord could be put into effect...
...They forbore to judge, and it was as though they took off their cloak besides their coat to give away...
...We find they all go together...
...The corporal works are to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to ransom the captive, to harbor the harborless, to visit the sick, and to bury the dead...
...The works of mercy are a wonderful stimulus to our growth in faith as well as in love...
...To reach the workers, you begin to study a philosophy of labor, and take up manual labor, useful labor, instead of white collar labor...
Vol. 121 • November 1994 • No. 20
