Dorothy Day

Dorothy was ill on the day she was supposed to come, so she did not arrive until late in the evening on the day before she was supposed to speak. She was very tired, so she had supper and went to bed. The next day we went down to St. Bridget's for Mass together, then came back to breakfast. She helped to diaper and feed the babies, and feed the older children, and doled out the cod-liver oil and candy.

Father Murphy came over and she met him, and he drove us out to Catholic High for pictures.

That evening before she was to talk at Blessed Martin House, she went down to the peace of St. Bridget's — for Blessed Martin House was not very restful, as there was no privacy and the children were many and noisy— to think.

While she was at church, Denise, Ida, and I began to clean up and put out the chairs for the people we had invited. Mary Lee and Mary Lou, our big little helpers from the Community Center, put cookies on plates, got the cups out for coffee, and helped in other such ways. Several members of the Outer Circle brought more cookies, or milk, or coffee. Father Robert loaned us more chairs from St. Bridget's.

The people began to come. Almost all the members of the Outer Circle were there, and some strangers. There were students from Sienna and C.B.C. There were several priests and Christian Brothers. There were volunteers from the house, even the one who had threatened not to help us any more or come to see us, if we bought the house in the alley.

Dorothy spoke. She talked about our unity in God, and of our obligations to each other in Him. She talked about poverty and the Catholic Worker and Blessed Martin House. She made an appeal for us, for volunteers and other help. She talked about the obligations of the rich, and quoted in that regard some strong words of Our Lord, beginning: "Woe unto you rich…you have had your reward." She quoted Peter Maurin's reminder that we take with us when we die only what we have given away, in Our Lord's name, while we live.

I watched the faces of those who listened. Some were deeply interested and became more and more thoughtful or alive. Some were closed and dead and remained so. Some grew red and angry, and I could see the effort it cost some people not to speak until she had finished. Some never understood. The colored people were awed and unbelieving at all this from a white woman. There was new hope in some of their faces, and a nameless delight. These would never forget what she had said. For one moment they had been lifted by her out of our little world.

As soon as she had taken her seat, the questions began, some angry and hot.

"Is there something particularly holy about poverty and dirt, or rats and roaches? Does God stop loving a man because he works and saves his money to provide for wants and needs of his family, or is there something sinful about being rich? Doesn't charity begin at home?"

"No, there is nothing particularly holy about dirt and rats and roaches. But there may be something very unholy about the way we regard those who suffer from these things. The safety of the rich lies in almsgiving. We must give until we become blessed. Blessed are the poor. Christ came to make the rich poor and the poor holy, Eric Gill said. When the Sadducees and Pharisees asked St. John the Baptist 'What must we do?' he answered, 'Let him who has two coats give to him who has none,' and with food likewise. Unquestioning sharing, unquestioning love.

"We must die to live, we must be pruned to bear fruit. We want to be free of responsibility except for our own. Yes, charity begins at home, but we are also our brother's keeper; we talk too much of our own homes, our own children.

"The Christian life is full of paradoxes. St. Thomas said that a certain amount of goods are necessary to lead a good life, and we are always talking about voluntary poverty. But ten million doses of sleeping pills will be taken tonight, and over seven million dollars worth of alcohol. There is money for coffee, movies, cosmetics, cigarettes, and many other things we could do without, that we could share with the poor."

"Doesn't the Catholic Worker encourage shiftlessness and laziness by feeding and sheltering people who won't help themselves? Don't you make people content with destitution by glorifying it, and take away their ambition to better themselves?"

Dorothy denied this. "No. Peter Maurin used to say that we must make the kind of society in which it is easier for people to be good.

"One needs to be happy to be good, and one needs to be good in order to be happy. One needs Christians to make a Christian social order and one needs a Christian social order in order to raise Christians. The paradox again. Such as dying to live. No one pretends it is a simple matter. It is all very hard to understand. The Christian must live in time and eternity, living with the long view, yet living most intensely at the moment. We are here to restore love, caritas, to the world, to overcome hatred with love. To receive charity and to give it is to practice loving."

"Aren't your ideas about the social order more Communist than Catholic?"

"No. We need always to remember that it is atheistic Communism which we oppose, but as for economic Communism— it is a system which has worked admirably in religious orders for two thousand years. The bishops once stated that many of the social aims of the Communist are Christian aims and must be worked for by Catholics. In our parishes and communities we should have credit unions, maternity guilds, and insurance benefit societies which would reach God's poorest. If we are trying to see Christ in our neighbor, we must see to his dignity, his worth, his position as a son of God. And to do this, it is not enough just to help out in an emergency. It is necessary to build a society where people are able by their work to sustain themselves, but also by mutual aid, to bear one another's burdens, when by sickness or accident men are unable to work."

The questions and answers continued until the lateness of the hour made it necessary to bring the meeting to a close. We all said Compline together and the others left. We cleaned the house and went to bed. Mother, Denise and Rosemary were very thoughtful. They had not heard anyone speak like this before.