Dorothy Day's Journal

Liturgy and Sociology

The age of individualism, laissez faire industrialism and self-seeking capitalism is dead and gone. Embers of the charred structure built up by the Protestant Revolution remain but it is nevertheless as dead as a doornail. Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.

The Mystical Body of Christ is a union - a unit - and action within the Body is common action. In the Liturgy we have the means to teach Catholics, thrown apart by Individualism into snobbery, apathy, prejudice, blind unreason, that they ARE members of one body and that "an injury to one is an injury to all."

What of the success of Nazis, Communists and Fascists who have been only too successful in making clear the idea that they are bound together with a common philosophy and a common purpose? We must recognize the fact that many Nazis, Marxists and Fascists believe passionately in their fundamental rightness, and allow nothing to hinder them from their goal in the pursuit of their mission.

Our faith is stronger than death, our philosophy is firmer than flesh, and the spread of the Kingdom of God upon the earth is more sublime and more compelling. We Catholics must pray, act and sacrifice together for Christ the King, for the spread of His Kingdom and the salvation of the world. We Catholics, together, can conquer the world.

The Liturgy, then, is common worship, concorporate worship, worship in one mind and with one heart, and with one mouth. Our common action in the Sacrifice of the Mass, impersonal, anti-individualistic is the best weapon against the world.

"Pius X tells us that the liturgy is the indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.

"Pius XI tells us that the true Christian spirit is indispensable for social regeneration.

"Hence the conclusion: The Liturgy is the indispensable basis of Christian social regeneration."

PRAYER FOR PEACE AND UNITY

O Lord Jesus Christ, who said to Thy Apostles, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you"; look not upon my sins, but the faith of Thy Church; and vouchsafe to grant her peace and unity acoording to Thy will: Who livest and reignest, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Day by Day / The Rural Life Conference

In reading the life of Lenin written by his widow, we were very much impressed some time ago at her account of what she terms a memorable meeting which was held in Paris one Sunday afternoon. Lenin had been living in exile all over Europe and gathering groups together wherever he could. It was just before the Russian revolution, and the meeting that took place was made up of some forty people.

We thought of that meeting of the people who were so soon to revolutionize a huge country and influence the thought of the entire world, while we attended the meeting last month of the Rural Life Conference in Rochester, New York. Considering the size of most gatherings, religious and political, that meeting was small. There were probably under a thousand people there, but among those people were leaders of Catholic thought in America, and their findings and the work which will result from those findings will probably, over a greater space of time perhaps, do much to revolutionize Catholic thought in America.

* * *

Selections from the printed speeches that were available are reproduced elsewhere in this issue of THE CATHOLIC WORKER which is dedicated to rural life and cooperatives. Soon all the speeches delivered at the conference will be available in printed form, and will make a valuable pamphlet on the rural life movement among Catholics in America.

One of the speeches which was not available was that of Father James J. Tompkins, parish priest of Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia. He told of the co-operative movement in Nova Scotia, how it began with adult education and study clubs and proceeded to the actual work of establishing consumers' and producers' co-operatives.

* * *

Father Tompkins is an old friend of THE CATHOLIC WORKER and we recall the time when he visited New York a year ago, and he and Peter Maurin started a conversation at two o'clock in the afternoon which proceeded for twelve hours. It is true that it was interrupted by a meeting that evening (it was on a Sunday and Peter was due at a gathering in Brooklyn) but Father Tompkins was so interested in the talk he and Peter were having that he proceeded to the meeting with his guest and they returned afterward to continue discussing until early the following morning.

In his talk at the Rural Life Conference, Father Tompkins called attention to the article, "Bourgeois Colleges" which appeared in the October Issue of THE CATHOLIC WORKER.

* * *

Unfortunately the program was prepared too early to include a talk by Peter Maurin, but in addition to many discussions with the leaders of the movement, he was able to hold several meetings after the conference. He also spoke to Nazareth College where the Sisters of St. Joseph teach.

* * *

Dan Connolly, one of the Catholic workers from New York, got to the conference by hitchhiking and returned to New York on a truck, the ride being arranged by members of the Campion Propaganda Committee of Rochester.

The latter committee which entertained the members of the Catholic Worker staff while they were in Rochester, has just been recently formed. There are four members now, all of them extremely active, distributing the paper, speaking before schools and organizations, and organizing study clubs throughout the diocese which will deal with sociological problems.

The Committee is made up of John Lennon, Martin Rooney, Barry Wilson and John Fox. Anyone in Rochester who wishes to participate in the work can get in touch with them through the Columbus Civic Center.

Summary: Includes reflections on life of Lenin as related by his wife. Tells a little of the Sept. 1935 of the Rural Life Conference in Rochester, New York. Day writes of Father James J. Tompkins of Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia, and his cooperative movements there. She relates more than 12-hour discussion the year before, which Fr. Tompkins had with Peter Maurin. Relates founding members of Campion Propaganda Committee of Rochester, including John Lennon, Martin Rooney, Barry Wilson, and John Fox.

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Day After Day

K. Travis, one of the girls in the Teresa-Joseph Cooperative, came in this morning and brought us two big cauliflower and the change from the dollar that bought them. We were deeply touched. It was a bit she made from house cleaning. The cauliflower we can make into a very good dish tonight, combining it with rice and cheese.
We have not bought meat around here since Lent, but we have eaten it, since a Brooklyn friend, Helen McCormick sends over cases of Home Relief Beef every now and then. Sometimes it is very good indeed, and sometimes it tastes like the cattle had gone hungry and thirsty a long time. Margaret is always trying combinations of stews, cooking it with kale from the country, cabbage, plain potatoes, noodles, etc., for our one big meal of the day. Breakfast and lunch both consist of cereal and coffee.

***

During this past month a new Catholic Worker baby has arrived. Now there is Teresa, Barbara, Christopher and Damien, nine, one and a half, one year, and the last is now just three weeks old. We went to the Christening Sunday night, P. Maurin and D. Day godparents, and afterwards part of the fun of the feast was to see what was in the house to eat. A can of corn, a can of peas, one slice of bacon apiece, tomatoes, cheese, fruit and coffee made a regal repast, prepared and set on the table by the men while the women discussed babies and diets, etc. The guests were rather conscience stricken at eating up everything in the house, there being no money in the Catholic Worker community. But the new mother comforted all with the assurance that there was fruit and oatmeal in the house which would do for breakfast, lunch and supper the next day. It was a joyful occasion, baby slept like a log through the christening, just shooting out his fists at the priest now and then (here's where he gets accused of being anti-clerical) and the supper was enhanced by a fine symphony coming over the radio, and the playing of Heifetz. An occasion such as this holds just about the truest, happiest one can ever know in this life. Thank God for this newest Catholic Worker who may some day be heading a farming commune in this storm-tossed country.

***

Mrs. de Aragon presented the office with a most gorgeous tapestry of Christ the King, three feet by six, I should say -- the copy of a tapestry which hangs in a French cathedral painted by herself. It now graces the office and we feel rich in these specimens of the handiwork of our gifted friends. We now have a magnificent statue of St. Anthony, the one which the Cardinal admired so much when it was exhibited several years ago, an oil painting of St. Anthony brought in by an anonymous friend of the paper in a taxi one early morning; a statue of our Blessed Mother, donated also by the de Aragons which has been blessed by one of the Holy Fathers and journeyed here from Rome, through Spain and South America; a statue of St. Joseph brought to us by Father Dougherty of his parish; a wall piece of Our Lady and the Child, designed by Ade Bethune, and executed in carpet by Lawrence Doyle; and there are also designs and drawings of Ade Bethune who, with Peter Maurin, ranks in the minds of the Catholic Workers as the genius of this concern.

***

The Month Passes

Went down to the country today to see Teresa and we went walking through the country roads where the fallen leaves were thickest and she could scuff through them. Fall has a special smell which we welcome each year -- the smell of burning leaves, or rotting apples, of concord grapes. In the city there is the smell of roasting chestnuts on the street corners, and through the Italian sections, the smell of fermenting wine.
Teresa was filled with the small chatter so dear to a mother's ears. About the feud between the day students and the boarders and how the boarders are going to be real good and show them; how Mother Chiarini is going to have a feast day; how one little girl there has a father and mother abroad; how music lessons are progressing.
It is a dear little school, Teresa's St. Patrick's Academy, nestled down in Richmond, in the center of Staten Island. There is a spirit of simplicity and poverty there, and it makes us happy to go there and visit the tiny chapel and say a few prayer while we wait for Teresa. Down one road there is a bakery from whence comes the warm filling smell of baking. Teresa visited there with Mother Chiarini last week and it was a wonderful place with a baker flinging a huge wad of dough over his shoulder and wielding a knife as big as a scimitar... Up another hill is a tall hill with a light house on top of it. Down another road there is an expanse of low land, fading into Arthur Kill. There are woods and fields and hills and the children go for long walks. There is but a patch of land with the convent so they take the country side for their roaming. It is good to walk, to pause in the turmoil of our lives to collect leaves, the seed pods of the gum trees, the mitten leaves of the sasafras, and to try to locate the sleepy crickets, singing in little rock gardens by the side of the path.

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Day After Day

Edison Plant

Distributing papers at the power house over in Brooklyn between four and five on a hot afternoon. The Hudson Avenue plant supplies all Queens, Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. It takes 700 men to work it and 680 are organized. At the offices of the Edison company there are 5000 working. There are in addition, seven district offices. For the actual generating of electricity there are two hundred in the plant. The men work in three shifts and some of them work eight hours straight and have no time off for eating. They eat while working. The mechanics work from eight to five and have an hour off for lunch. Before the men started the brotherhood of Edison Employees, the pay was $23 to $36. Now it is $27 to $46. The men are supposed to get a pension at 65 but usually long before this the pay is lowered to $25 and the pension amounts to about $7 a week. Or perhaps they get fired for mistakes.

While we distributed there was a steady roar of the machines in our ears which filled the air unbearably. The men work in the midst of this roar all the time. We could look out over the river while we waited for the men to dribble out of the plant, over a field of weeds, burdock, dandelion and grass growing cheerfully in the shade. There is a bend in the river right there and we watched the tugboats and the barges going by. The overhanging bridge was like poem. To one side there is a gantry.

This, one of the workers said proudly, is the largest generating plant in the world. They use coal to generate the electricity. The heat would melt the machinery so the men have to work practically in a refrigerating plant and in the hottest weather wear warm clothes!

Welfare Dept.

Went with Margaret to the Welfare Dept. The waiting. room was small, and so crowded, by, nine thirty in the morning that fifteen people already were standing up. The investigators came out into this crowded room to interview their "clients." It is hard to watch people trying to achieve some privacy, speaking behind cupped hands, their faces working. The investigators telling them to speak up. There are many children in the room underweight, pale and sad. It is hard to see grown people crying and young children with set sad faces terrified at the sight of adult despair.

There is a Negro there with crucifixes in her ears. A young girl with a trembling baby with an old white face. There is a strange contrast between the impassive faces of the investigators and the twisted anguished faces of those investigated.

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Day After Day

A day so wet and heavy that one could scarcely breathe. No sun, but the air felt hot as a blanket, hanging close over the city, and people walked around languidly, scarcely able to move with the oppression that was upon them.

Down to the Houston Street Home Relief Bureau with some friends who are on Home Relief and who are registering for work relief, and there marveled at the two policemen and five husky young men hanging around the entrance. Job holders they are, sneering at those who come for help. "A strong-arm squad," a member of the unemployed union told us, "to keep delegations out of the bureau. We were down last week, presenting a petition, and I got a black eye as a result. We come to ask for jobs, and all we get is kicks and curses."

A woman with a baby in her arms, probably not more than a few weeks old, came to ask why her rent had not been paid. She was refused admittance and told to leave her baby at home next time, with her husband, perhaps.

She did not speak English very well, but she made the strong-arm squad understand that "she had no husband."

And where did the baby come from, they jeered as she was forced to leave.

* * *

Down to Staten Island in the afternoon to see how the family there were getting along. Bernard and Rudy, two little boys, six and eight, from the Harlem classes, and a former Jewish rabbi, homeless because of his conversion, are our latest guests there.

There was time for a swim before supper and the water was oily calm, with the sky hanging so low over it that you could almost reach up and touch it with your hands. We all crouched in the water, digging for small hardshell clams with our hands, and found a dozen. Teresa was best at it.

After supper the atmosphere was a little brighter, with the rays of the sun stealing out from under the heavy curtain of clouds and just a suggestion of freshness in the air. So the children and Stanley and I went for a walk, arriving back in the dusk, the children stumbling not only with fatigue but because they insisted on walking with their faces uplifted to the moon.

* * *

Another morning, hot and heavy, and with the first rays of the sun the cicadas begin their triumphant song. Teresa woke me to tell me they were the first of the year and it was pleasant to lie there in bed and listen to the loud crescendo rising to a climax and dying out again drowsily.

The children played out under the apple trees after breakfast, waiting for the grownups to be ready for a swim while the tide was high.

Midweek as it was, the beach was deserted and it was refreshing to swim out into the calm bay and then float, bathed in both sea, sky and sun, and silence, too, save for the happy calls of the children as they played with the little waves that foamed up on the beach.

* * *

The garden progresses and for the last week, with the heavy rains, there had been no need to water it. We are beginning to study sprays and the labels which proclaim their efficacy for aphids, thrips and leaf hoppers, Mexican bean beetles, black fly, soft scale and midge. We have been eating the lettuce, onions, radishes and a few string beans and soon the tomatoes will be ready. One of the best smells in the world is the smell of tomato plants, or perhaps the wet earth after a rain, or honeysuckle or privet hedge in blossom. The world is full of good smells down here after the heavy smells of the city and crowded humans. Even the poison ivy we have discovered has a delicious odor when it is blossoming. So there is at least one good contribution from that venomous weed which has caused at least two of our workers to swell and burn and itch through sleepless nights.

* * *

The only trouble with the garden commune is that one cannot be there all the time. There are a dozen permanent residents, and all the rest go and come to fulfill their duties in town as well as out. And it is always such a wrench to put on shoes and stockings and toil the hot long way up to the station and take the train into the city.

* * *

Bernard has just come in with another bouquet for his mother. The two children pick daily bouquets which are gathered with loving care and then forgotten--wild carrot, wild onion, bay leaves, sassafras twigs, buttercups and daisies, Queen Anne's lace, clovers and the persisting honeysuckle.

From the open window by my side as I write, the smell of new cut grass is coming in from the field by the side of the house where Stanley is cutting. He has left the city streets and his apostolate of paper selling, has Stanley, and has become the guardian of the two small, colored boys for the week.

Today five little girls came down--Dorothy and Hattie, Louise, Bernice and Elinor. They, too, are Harlem children, and they don't need anyone to watch them, they said, because Dorothy is twelve and quite used to being guardian to three or four younger than herself.

The work in town calls, and one must go back and face evictions, court cases, hospital patients to visit, callers to see at the office and folders of letters which must be answered

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Wealth, The Humanity of Christ, Class War

WEALTH

"The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: "What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?"

And he said, "This will I do, I will pull down my barns and will build greater and into them will I gather all the things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer!"

But God said to him: "Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee; and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?"

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST

It is because we forget the Humanity of Christ (present with us today in the Blessed Sacrament just as truly as when He walked with His apostles through the cornfields that Sunday long ago, breakfasting on the ears of corn) -- that we have ignored the material claims of our fellow man during this capitalistic, industrialist era. We have allowed our brothers and sisters, our fellow members in the Mystical Body to be degraded, to endure slavery to a machine, to live in rat-infested holes.

This ignoring of the material body of our humanity which Christ ennobled when He took flesh, gives rise to the aversion for religion evidenced by many workers. As a result of this worshipping of the Divinity alone of Christ and ignoring His Sacred Humanity, religious people looked to Heaven for justice and Karl Marx could say --

"Religion is the opium of the people."

And Wobblies could say -- "Work and Pray--live on hay; you'll get pie in the sky when you die."

It is because we love Christ in His Humanity that we can love our brothers. It is because we see Christ in the least of God's creatures, that we can talk to them of the love of God and

know that what we write will reach their hearts.

A. Yenukidze in the "Life of Stalin" wrote: "It is a well

known fact that the most difficult task for intellectuals among the workers has always been to find a tongue in which to speak to the workers'."

And St. Paul said, "If you speak with the tongue of men and angels and have not charity you are become a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

CLASS WAR

To assent to violence is to give way to the spirit of the times This is truly betraying the workers,

Agreeing with the necessity for force is making concessions to the immediate, the expedient. It is in reality denying the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and the dogma of the Mystical Body. "Why must the members war one against the other?"

To become one with the workers -- to be the poorest of the poor, yes.

But to assent to the mob spirit is a betrayal. It is to be carried on the wave of a movement. It is the easiest way. To use all of our spiritual forces to propel that movement of the people is to be guilty of a terrible wrong.

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Day After Day

At a friend's house this evening we met the grandchild of a saloon-keeper who had been hanged as a Molly Maguire in the days when unionization in the coal fields was just beginning down in Pennsylvania. Not long ago we read an article in the Herald Tribune magazine section which told how the U.S. Bureau of Mines had worked to protect the lives of miners by inspections and enforcing safety laws and the installation of safety devices. There was not a word in that article of the work the Molly Maguires did in protesting against hazardous working conditions, long hours, child labor and such wages that the textile industries grew up in mine regions to exploit the labor of the women and girls of miners who had to go to work because the men of the family were not paid enough to support them.

The Molly Maguires took to violence, and thus brought discredit on the labor movement. But woe to those men who drove them to violence. Those mine owners themselves are guilty in the sight of God for the murders perpetrated by the miners in the vicious fight for bare subsistence.

All that the public generally hears about these early labor troubles is what he reads in dime novels about the Pinkerton boys and how they broke up the organization.

* * *

We went up to Toronto this month on the invitation of Dr. Muckle, rector of the Cathedral, and spent a very enjoyable week. In illustrations of the idea of individual responsibility, he told me a story of a tinsmith working ten hours a day for $44 a month, who sent money to different organizations to further their work, and gave all his spare time to his work as lay apostle.

The archbishop's palace in Toronto is a well-used place. We went there for dinner one night, and it is a good, bare place, anything but luxurious, with many rooms given over to meetings, discussion groups, workers' clubs, and offices. There was even a working-girls' club, where the young women were having a St. Valentine's Day party, cooking in the kitchen, which was attached to the clubrooms, and dancing to a radio afterward.

* * *

Speaking of church suppers, one of our young Communist relatives came in to see us the other day and talked of the unit dinner being given, cooked by the Ladies' Auxiliary. Also, together with all other members of the Communist party, he had been commissioned to sell chances on a five-dollar gold piece--the chance book looked dearly familiar. Also he had a book of stamps to be sold for the underground fund the Communist party is gathering together with the expectation that in the near future the party will be suppressed. All the younger members of the party look upon this prospect with joy. To work underground--to carry on secret propaganda and publishing and distributing "underground"--what fun! Even selling chances becomes an exciting adventure. We are very much opposed to giving them all this pleasure.

* * *

Friendship House, where we visited in Toronto, is a place much like our own offices here in New York. The atmosphere is very much the same, though their place is cleaner and quieter. The group which is running the place under the direction of Catherine de Hueck is engaged in propaganda activities among the children and workers in one of the poorest districts of Toronto, bringing the thought of the church to those who up to the present time have only been reached by Communists.

There are two connected houses which have been converted into reading rooms and dining rooms, and upstairs on one side there is a hospice for men and on the other for women. Plans are under way to open another house for boys, putting it under the protection of St. John Bosco. The other two houses are called St. Joseph's house and St. Teresa's house.

Right now mimeographed leaflets like those put out by THE CATHOLIC WORKER are being distributed throughout the city.

This very active group of workers has been distributing two thousand copies of THE CATHOLIC WORKER every month, but now the order has been increased to four thousand.

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Day After Day

This morning a young Socialist to breakfast [sic]. (Usually as I come from mass there is somebody waiting at the door to get in.) He had formerly been a Communist, and now he is a Socialist. He was lamenting the lack of zeal tn the Socialist group. "It seems," he said, "that the Catholic Workers and the Communists have it all."

We spoke of the arguments as to the existence of God, notably the argument from conscience. The Communists have absolute standards of right or wrong, regardless of what he may say. Their practice of self-criticism prove this. From whom do those standards come? They would say, from Karl Marx or Lenin, I suppose.

In the evening I attended a meeting where there was a young Catholic lawyer who had just returned from a visit to Mexico. He was enthusiastic about the public improvements in the State of Sonora, the playgrounds (there was one place just as good as Jones Beach!) and the roads, and I don't know what-all -- and the fact that the peons were earning two pesos a day on some of the plantations and could wear silk stockings! Rodolpho Calles must have some good points, he said. This in spite of the fact that not a church is open in the state and not a priest allowed! When I contemplate civilization which offers us silk stockings and playgrounds and electric ice boxes in return for the love of God, I begin to long for a good class war, with the civilizers and the advertising men for those same civilizers, lined up to be liquidated.

* * *

Bishop Busch of St. Cloud, Minnesota, came in for a call this morning and gave us his blessing. When we saw his book on "The Art of Living with God," which deals with the "ordinary workings of the Holy Spirit in the human soul," we took it away from him, with his consent. He had read The Catholic Worker in Rome and made up his mind there, he said, to pay us a visit on his way back to his diocese. We were immensely pleased and honored at his visit. He contributed to our work, too, and it was an answer to prayer, because the paper had just come out and we needed money for the mailing. Bless him, dear Lord.

In the afternoon, Father Ehman, from Rochester, came in and we had a good visit, and before he left he blessed Barbara, who is being bothered with her gums, poor baby, and lo! not long afterward the first tooth sprouted, a real miracle, Margaret, her mother, says.

Did I ever mention that other miracle that Margaret boasts of, perpetrated by St. Anthony? An Armenian friend who is a poet had lost a large manuscript on which he had been working for some years. When he came in one evening and told us about it, Margaret started praying immediately to St. Anthony and the very next morning a young lad came in bearing the manuscript. It had been in a large envelope bearing the Catholic Worker address, fortunately. The boy refused to be rewarded and left, taking with him a copy of the Catholic Worker, though he said he was an Episcopalian worker. Nevertheless, Margaret still insists it was St. Anthony in disguise who brought back the epic.

* * *

Franciscan spirit grows hereabouts. Last night Mr. Minas, who is devoted to our black cat, was discovered washing her chest with my washrag and drying her with my towel and then anointing her with a warming unguent for a bad cough! It is good I discovered him in the act. Then big Dan, our chief-of-staff on the streets of New York (who sells the paper, either on Fourteenth Street or in front of Macy's, every day) took one of my blankets to shelter the old horse who helps us deliver our Manhattan bundles of papers every month.

* * *

Father Nicholas, of the Immaculate Conception Church, preaches very good sermons on prayer. This morning he was talking of the gifts of the Magi, frankincense being not only prayer, but union with God. And he pointed out that even the busy housewife, with a raft of young ones about her heels, could be united to God as she went about her daily work. Another Sunday morning, this month, he spoke on ejaculatory prayer--the necessity of making short aspirations of love during the day.

* * *

Went to the Cenacle at three this afternoon, going up on the bus through the heavy fog. The trees on the Drive were beautiful standing out so alone--the only things of beauty in a grey dark world. I love such days, so much is hidden, and only single things like a tree or bush stand out These are good days to walk in, not too cold, and if you go down by the docks at the foot of 23rd or Fourteenth or Tenth. the world seems to come to an end right there. There is a rare stillness only broken by the sound of the water washing against the piers. And when, as along Riverside Drive you have the trees as well as the sense of the water (if you do not have the sight of it) there is a poignant midwinter beauty, a very restful interlude in a crowded life.

* * *

A Franciscan missionary priest from China came in this evening with Mr. Walsh, who is a pressman down at the American. Mr. Walsh has been one of our supporters for the last year and it is to due to his efforts that many missionary priests in China have received copies of The Catholic Worker. He has lived there some time himself and has a keen interest in the affairs over there.

There was good conversation for some hours and before Father Burtschy left he said that he would see to it that some of the writings of Peter Maurin were translated into the Chinese for one of the two Catholic dailies. It was great to contemplate seeing Peter's Easy Essays in Chinese, but it was astounding to contemplate the fact that there two Chinese Catholic dailies.

* * *

Other interesting visitors during the month were: A Maltese Catholic who spoke glowingly of the devotion to St. Paul, which still exists at the present time on the island of Malta; and a formerly I.W.W. Marine transport worker who was converted to the church some five or six years ago who is interested in The Catholic Worker movement.

* * *

An interesting work which has been undertaken by Robert Cutler and his associates down in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where there are only 2,500 Catholics out of a population of 50,000, is the getting of information about the Church into the secular press and the distribution of Catholic literature.

In the last four months they have distributed 2,500 pieces of literature. There are only four young people undertaking this work, one of them an invalid girl. What they are doing in their community could be done in many others all over the country. Mr. Cutler came up to New York to gather together Catholic literature and pamphlets and found a very generous response wherever he asked for cooperation.

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A Long Editorial But It Could Be Longer

We heard one woman say at a meeting last month, "I am getting fed up with Catholic Action!"

If C.A. means just study clubs, reading and talk, as those who are sincerely going in for it seem to think; or bridge games, and a little catechetical work on the side-then we don't blame people for being fed up with it.

We've heard people groaning over the idea of study clubs for a long time. They probably would not be so bored with the idea if they were fighting for their lives as well as their principles as they are doing down in Mexico. The trouble is that most people do not yet see any necessity for C.A. They have liberty, freedom of worship, they can send their children to Catholic schools--they are pretty comfortable as yet. For those who are out of work, for the hungry, it is hard for them to see any point in perfecting their knowledge of the theory, the technique of Catholic Action. What they shout for is "real action," "political action" and in some cases, "violent action."

The usual rather futile comment of the comfortable is--"We know something has to be done-but what can we do about it"--and they are uncomfortable in their comfort and if they are blessed with a conscience, they suffer without knowing what to do about it.

Catholic Action provides a program for all, of actual work as well as a study of technique and theory. That is--the work is there provided people would be content to do the little thing--the immediate thing, the thing that comes to hand. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it." It does not matter what it is, or whether you can figure out its place in the huge pattern of reconstruction.

Why are study clubs essential? For the knowledge of fundamentals. For the knowledge of Catholic philosophy. Without a philosophy to direct your actions they are indeed futile and misdirected.

Is it hard to study abstract principles? Well, here is a plan by which you can study with some definite end in view.

Take the Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper--you can get it at any newsstand in New York (and we don't care if we are boosting the circulation of the paper by this advice either. As a matter of fact, one issue of the paper should last you a long time). Study the Communist criticism of the present system. What is the Catholic criticism? What remedies do the Communists offer? What is the Catholic solution?

To illustrate: I have before me a copy of The Daily Worker for January 23. On the front page there is a story of the shirt-makers' strike, a steel strike, the National Biscuit Company strike, a strike of 25,000 oil workers in Mexico, the discussion of a wool workers' strike. These stories lead to study of what the church thinks of organization of workers. This is taken up in the first part of the encyclical "Forty year after." Are our present unions illustrative of what the Pope wanted? If they are not, how to make them so? If there is no other existing union, is it permissible to join a union which is dominated by Communists? What action did Matt Talbot, the Irish workingman-saint, take in the general strike in Ireland? What about picketing? The necessity of emphasizing the idea of non-violent activities. What about the action of the consumer or outsider in the strike?

We could go on indefinitely but let's pass to other front-page stories in the Daily Worker. A discussion of Fascism and Nazism. What is the Church's stand? Is the Church universal or is it National? The dangers of Nationalism. The dangers of dictatorship. The Church's attitude in regard to the dignity of the individual--individual responsibility, the individual and the family unit to begin with.

There is another story about the President's social security program. What about state regulation, state capitalism, state socialism, fascism (progressive steps). How far should the state be allowed to "regulate" human activities: Jefferson's ideas as to the "less government there is the better it is." Self-regulation as opposed to state regulation.

(And here is a light note: On the bottom of the page, a large two-column box, WANTED: RED BUILDERS! In other words, people to sell the Daily Worker on the streets. The call is for a hundred, probably to compete with our gang who are selling THE CATHOLIC WORKER on Fourteenth street, 34th street and 42nd street. Competition is the life of trade, Peter Maurin!)

If you study Communist theory and practice, and Catholic theory and practice, and then uphold the latter, you will be doing a constructive piece of work in combating the materialist philosophy of the present day. You cannot uphold the Catholic program without influencing others. You cannot talk of Catholic principles without putting them into practice.

Of what use is it to teach catechism and tell the children of the love that is necessary they have for their neighbor, without having them go out and act on that love. If you love your neighbor you wish to serve him.

You cannot receive the Blessed Sacrament without becoming sensitive to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and these inspirations are to be put into practice.

Do you know your neighbor in the first place? Or do you live in a neighborhood where nobody speaks to anyone else? If you want to reach him, employ Communist technique to do it. You could canvass your apartment house, for instance, to get subscriptions to some Catholic paper (THE CATHOLIC WORKER is cheap!), and by doing this you are coming into contact with Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Perhaps some of them are Communists. You can acknowledge to them that their criticism of the present order is just and this may lead to further discussion which will clarify your mind and theirs. You can petition your Catholic neighbors for clothes to aid the needy, or food to feed the hungry. Your St. Vincent de Paul society would be glad of the clothes if you can't dispose of them. Perhaps in your peregrinations you will come across neighbors who are in need and whom you can help. This advice is for those middle class ones who are anxious to do something but who do not know what to do. The poor find enough to do all right. And they are the most generous in sharing what they have. Their insecurity has made them god-like in their recklessness of the morrow. If they have two coats they do as Christ bade them. What food or coals they have they very often are called upon to share.

Oh, we can fill our lives up with Catholic Action all right, if we just look around us. We can link up liturgy and sociology, in other words. And as for collaboration with the clergy, if you are in earnest you can find some priest only too willing to co-operate, if not in your own parish, then in another. And if this is not possible, collaborate with your confessor and go in for individual C.A.

And above all, be generous - and lavish. Christ is lavish with His gift to us - why should we fear to be extravagant in return? Do not say to yourself, "where will it all end, if I start this?"

I have heard people say, in coming in contact with need: "If I supply them with groceries this week, they will be expecting me to keep it up." But I do not think it works out this way. It has not with us, here at THE CATHOLIC WORKER office. In fact when we have made gifts of food, clothing, a bit of money (though that seldom) it has usually been the other way around. The recipients have come back to see what they could do for us.

The early Christians started with the works of mercy and it was this technique which converted the world.

They run in this wise:

The corporal works - To feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to harbor the harborless; to ransom the captive; to visit the sick; to bury the dead.

The spiritual works are - To instruct the ignorant; to counsel the doubtful; to admonish sinners; to bear wrongs patiently; to forgive offense willingly; to comfort the afflicted; to pray for the living and the dead.

Not all of these works are within the reach of all - that is understood. But that we should take part in some of them is a matter of obligation, a "strict precept imposed both by the natural and Divine law."

P.S. - Not one of the ten prayer books we went through around the office listed these works of mercy, though they listed the seven deadly sins.

This text is not copyrighted. However, if you use or cite this text please indicate the original publication source and this website (Dorothy Day Library on the Web at http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/). Thank you.

Christmas

Christmas is coming and Teresa and Freddy are drawing pictures of the Nativity. Freddy tells the story, as they work industriously at the kitchen table, of the big boss Herod and how he heard about the little Christ baby being born, and how scared he was that his temporal power was tottering. Freddy's father, a Sicilian, is one of those people against whom the Protestant accusation is leveled that Catholics never read the Bible. Freddy's father doesn't, it is true, but he listens attentively to the Gospels and Epistles and he comes home and tells them at meal times to his little family. He tells them with reverent love, feeling intensely that the Good God sent His Son here to be with us. When Freddy's father hears Christ's words in the church he lays them to his heart and ponders over them as Joseph did. Probably Joseph didn't do much reading either, but listened a lot.

When I hear Freddy and Teresa tell the story to each other, each filling in the gaps, it comes fresh and clear to my mind.

"And the cow breathed on the little baby Jesus and kept it warm," Teresa says delightedly. "Cows are very warm animals, I know. Father McKenna's place down in Staten Island has cows and I leaned against them while the brother was milking them. They didn't mind at all. I was a very little girl then. I'm sure the little baby Jesus didn't mind being in the stable at all. Probably there were chickens, too. And maybe the shepherds brought their littlest lambs to show them to Him."

Christ came to live with the poor and the homeless and the dispossessed of this world, I pointed out to them, and he loved them so much that he showed himself to the workers--the poor shepherds--first of all. It wasn't till afterward that he received the Kings of this earth. So let us keep poor-- poor as possible--"In a stable with cows and chickens," Teresa finished joyfully. "And then it will be easier for me to have God in my heart."

Revolution

We have all probably noted those sudden moments of quiet--those strange and almost miraculous moments in the life of a big city when there is a cessation of traffic noises--just an instant when there is only the sound of footsteps which serves to emphasize a sudden peace. During those seconds it is possible to notice the sunlight, to notice our fellow humans, to take breath.

After hours of excitement and action and many human contacts, when even in one's sleep and at moments of waking there is a sense of the imminence of things to be done and of conflict ahead, it is good to seek those moments of perfect stillness and refreshment during early Mass.

Then indeed it seems that God touches the heart and the mind. There are moments of recollection, of realization when the path seems straighter, the course to be followed perfectly plain, though not easy. It is as though the great Physician to whom we go for healing had put straight that which was dislocated, and prescribed a course of action so definite that we breathe relief at having matters taken out of our hands.

Such a moment came this morning with the thought--the revolution we are engaged in is a lonely revolution, fought out in our own hearts, a struggle between Nature and Grace.

It is the most important work of all in which we are engaged.

If we concentrate our energies primarily on that; then we can trust those impulses of the Holy Spirit and follow them simply, without question. We can trust and believe that all things will work together for good to them that love God, and that He will guide and direct us in our work. We will accomplish just what he wishes us to accomplish and no more, regardless of our striving. Since we have good will, one need no longer worry as though the work depended just on ourselves.

Picketing

When the Campion Propaganda Committee went to picket before the office of the Mexican consul for the first time--and it was the first time Catholics in this country had ever picketed as Catholics--we asked those who were engaged in the work to recall Christ's way of the cross as they walked for Him. Once again Christ in His Mystical Body is being tortured and put to death, and we as Catholics were showing our silent grief and horror. When we go again in a body on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe whose heart is once again being pierced with the sword--we can hold in mind also the death of the three men and the child (and more of the sixteen injured may be dead by now) who died for picketing the church in the state of Chiapas to prevent the army officers from going in and defiling the sacred place.

It is only by passive resistance that we can oppose our enemies. Picketing is a form of passive resistance to injustice.

In the United States there are the beginnings of what we are opposing in Mexico. We must protest now, while we have the opportunity. There is no use waiting until socialization of children is under way in the United States. The other day Mrs. Katherine Burton, who has a monthly page in The Sign, was visiting the office and she told us of educational trends in the public schools in Bronxville, New York. The courses in biology include detailed discussion of sex and birth control and this for ten-year-old children--and the course is described as "from the amoeba to man". It sounds like Mexico!

This text is not copyrighted. However, if you use or cite this text please indicate the original publication source and this website (Dorothy Day Library on the Web at http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/). Thank you.