Dorothy Day's "The Catholic Worker"

Dorothy Day who lived from 1897 to 1980 and dropped out of college "to write for socialist and pacifist newspapers" (413). Day was arrested for "protesting that women could not vote" (413), had an abortion, and then decided to have her second child when she got pregnant again. Day had not grown up with any association with any church and now that her life was in disarray, she joined the Catholic Church and had this child baptized. "Shortly afterwards, she met Peter Maurin, a french former Christian Brother now dedicated to a Franciscan ideal of poverty" (413). With Maurin, Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement. This movement started first with a newspaper and then expanded to have some homes for the "otherwise homeless" (413). "Day continued to write, protest, and serve the poor until her death" (413). This writing by Day is from the first issue of the newspaper of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Day's central beliefs are fairly prevalent and love is a main topic of this reading. The theme that all people should love others and that many, if not all, problems can be overcome with love is interwoven throughout this essay. Day says this about loving the poor and those less favorable in today's society, "When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us" (416). She continues to emphasize this and explains that we have to see Christ in everyone, "and nothing else" (416). The first observation that might be made is that this is quite hard and that as humans, we see the faults in others. Day explains, "And this is not easy. Everyone will try to kill that love in you, even your nearest and dearest; at least they will try to prune it" (416). Day believes that the "only Christian answer is love, to the very end, to the laying down of your life. . ." (417).

It is easy to see that Shane Claiborne and Dorothy Day and similar. They both fight for basically the same thing, and both talk about love and its importance. As Day did, Shane also lived with the poor and hungry and experience first hand their suffering. Both also believe that it is necessary to see other people just as Christ sees us. To quote Day again, "God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us" (416); We need to do the same. One insight that I have definately gained is that if I am going to be a pastor, I need to experience some of the suffering of the world so that I can identify with the poor and downtrodden. I also see that it is easy to get "lulled" into our own little world and forget about the face that there are millions of other people in the world that don't have all of these luxuries and that need love and help. This is where the old saying comes into play, "Count your blessings." Even with this in mind, I see that we all need a "reality check" once in a while so that we don't lose sight of other people's misfortunes.