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Related: About this forumHappy Birthday, Catholic Worker Movement
May 1, 2017 by Jeannine Pitas
Today is the International Day of the Worker, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and the 84th birthday of the Catholic Worker Movement. Two years ago at this time Id barely heard of Catholic Worker. Today, Im kind of a Catholic Worker groupie (there will probably be more on this in future posts). I encountered my local CW community just over a year ago not to give help, but to receive it. Although I did not need the food or shelter that my local house offers, Id spent a long winter yearning for what they especially like to give: hospitality and an inclusive community. I relate so well to Dorothy Days famous statement: ¨We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.¨
If you havent already, I would urge you to get to know your local Catholic Worker community. If you dont have one in your city or town, consider starting one. They are a sign of hope in a world that is suffering. When it would be all too easy to yearn for the past, they look with hope to the future we will create. As fellow founder Peter Maurin put it,
The Catholic Worker believes
in creating a new society
within the shell of the old
with the philosophy of the new,
which is not a new philosophy
but a very old philosophy,
a philosophy
so old that it looks like new.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/voxnova/2017/05/01/happy-birthday-catholic-worker-movement/
http://www.catholicworker.org/
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Happy Birthday, Catholic Worker Movement (Original Post)
rug
May 2017
OP
TexasProgresive
(12,148 posts)1. Kudos to Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day may the rest in peace.
These two people lived these words of St. Francis of Assisi, I have done what is mine to do. May God teach you what is yours to do." One from an upper middle class life and the other from a poor farming family in France. Like Francis both were not fervent believers as young adults and both had a conversion experience which lead them to new thought and action. The result was the Catholic Worker.
http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/life-and-spirituality.html
Dorothy always insisted that Peter Maurin, not she, started the Catholic Worker Movement. She also credited him for completing her Catholic education.
The details of Peter Maurin's life are sketchy, but Dorothy recounts what he told her. He was born a French peasant and became a teacher with the De La Salle Christian Brothers in France. He emigrated to Canada, worked as an itinerant laborer in the United States, taught French in Chicago, then moved to New York. Constantly studying, Peter was charged with a vision to change the social order. Saint Francis of Assisi inspired him to live a life of voluntary poverty, and Peter was determined to popularize the social doctrines of the Catholic church.
Peter's vision was simple yet far-reaching. His program of action consisted of roundtable discussions for the clarification of thought, houses of hospitality where the works of mercy could be performed, and agronomic universities-a return to working the land, where workers could become scholars and scholars workers. He proposed to popularize this vision by publishing a newspaper for the people in the street.
When Peter met Dorothy, he introduced her to a whole new set of ideas and a historical vision of the Catholic church. Speaking in his thick French accent, he expounded on the prophets of Israel, the Fathers of the church, and the lives of the saints. Dorothy admired Peter both for the ideas he taught her and for his personal example of voluntary poverty and deep faith.
Peter and Dorothy
One of Peter's Easy Essays- easy to read but tend to leave an uneasy mind.
http://www.centerfortheworkingpoor.org/faith-and-poverty/the-easy-essays-of-peter-maurin-define-the-catholic-worker-movementBetter and Better Off
The world would be better off
if people tried to become better.
And people would become
better
if they stopped trying to become
better off.
For when everybody tries to
become better off
nobody is better off.
But when everybody tries to
become better,
everybody is better off.
Everybody would be rich
if nobody tried to become richer.
And nobody would be poor
If everybody tried to be the
poorest.
And everybody would be what
he ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what he wants the other fellow
to be.
rug
(82,333 posts)2. Thanks for those links.