Girl, so confusing featuring Lord
Truisms II: The Truismening
“The best kind of apologetics is the kind of apologetics people do not have to apologize for. In the first centuries of Christianity pagans said about Christians: “See how they love each other.” The love for God and neighbor was the characteristic of the first Christians.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“Father Roy was right, of course. ‘A community of Christians is known by the love they have for one another. See how they love one another!’ ‘Nobody can say that about us,’ I would groan.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“It is about time to blow the lid off so the Catholic Church may again become the dominant social dynamic force.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“By fall, letters pouring in from all over the country indicated that The Catholic Worker was a success. Running through these letters, Peter became so dazzled by them that, in the interest of further clarification of thought, he decided to take a bold step: he hired the ballroom of the Manhattan Lyceum, which was usually reserved for weddings and bar mitzvahs. He planned a series of Sunday afternoon lectures and discussions. He went so far as to advertise his first lecture with mimeographed leaflets. About fifteen people showed up. After that he contented himself with a small meeting room.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“On Farming Communes unemployed college graduates will be taught how to build their houses, how to gather their fuel, how to raise their food, how to make their furniture; that is to say, how to employ themselves.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“With workers and scholars living so close together, the old conflict between them reappeared almost at once. The workers wanted only to work with their hands and to produce visible results. The scholars wanted these things too; but they also had a sense of their own vocation. As far as the workers could see, what the scholars mainly wanted was the opportunity for weekends in the country devoted to nonstop talking.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“To impart Catholic thought and train in Catholic Action, such is the function of Catholic universities. Some way ought to be found to send Catholic workers to Catholic universities or to bring Catholic universities to Catholic workers. When Catholic scholars and Catholic workers become acquainted with each other Catholic workers win cease to be politically minded and begin to be scholarly minded. When Catholic scholars are dynamic and not academic and Catholic workers are scholars and not politicians we will have dynamic Catholic Action.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“One does not do much leisurely thinking in Saint Joseph’s House of Hospitality.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“We read in the Catholic Encyclopedia that during the early ages of Christianity the hospice (or the House of Hospitality) was a shelter for the sick, the poor, the orphans, the old, the traveler, and the needy of every kind. Originally the hospices (or Houses of Hospitality) were under the supervision of the Bishops, who designated priests to administer the spiritual and temporal affairs of these charitable institutions.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“Do we get much help from Catholic Charities? We are often asked this question. I can say only that it is not the Church or the state to which we turn when we ask for help in these appeals. Cardinal Spellman did not ask us to undertake this work, nor did the Mayor of New York. It just happened.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“We need Houses of Hospitality to give to the rich the opportunity to serve the poor. We need Houses of Hospitality to bring the Bishops to the people and the people to the Bishops. We need Houses of Hospitality to bring back to institutions the technique of institutions. We need Houses of Hospitality to show what idealism looks like when it is practiced.”
-Peter Maurin, Easy Essays
“‘Is this what you meant, Peter?’ I asked him once about an overcrowded house of hospitality. ‘Well,’ he hesitated, ‘At least it arouses the conscience.’ Which is something.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
“Dear Dorothy: I arrived in Seattle safe and sound except for a couple bruises on the chin. We were driving back to Spokane from the Jesuit House of Studies. Father Robinson, dean of Gonzaga College, was the driver. I was sitting in the back with a Jesuit scholastic. Our conversation was so interesting for Father Robinson that he forgot to stop at a red light and ran into the middle of a city bus.”
-Peter Maurin, in a 1938 letter to Dorothy Day
“I was sure of Peter - sure that he was a saint and a great teacher - although, to be perfectly honest, I wondered if I really liked Peter sometimes. He was twenty years older than I, spoke with an accent so thick it was hard to penetrate to the thought beneath, he had a one-track mind, he did not like music, he did not read Dickens or Dostoevski, and he did not bathe.”
-Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes