ByDorothy Day
Summary: An essay on the mystery and complexity of poverty, real and voluntary kinds. Enumerates the many forms of poverty, the irony of “poverty” in “rich” religious orders, and finally poverty as a means of helping the poor. (DDLW #633). The Catholic Worker, May 1952, 2, 6.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: A yearly appeal for funds from readers. Discusses the poverty of the Catholic Worker and the purpose of that poverty in relation to Christ. Links the appeal for funds to the begging of St. Francis and the giving of funds to our love of God. Keywords: folly of the cross (DDLW #581). The Catholic Worker, October-November 1977, 2.
ByDorothy Day
Poverty is a very mysterious thing. We need to be always writing and thinking about it. It would seem strange…
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Asks for aid describing their crowded tenement, and notes the coming and going of the young as well as the needs of older long-term guests. Looks for signs of spring after a hard winter. In spite of poverty she admits how acquisitive they can be for books, time, and loving kindness. (DDLW #864). The Catholic Worker, March 1968, 2.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Gives examples of false voluntary poverty and refutes the notion that real poverty doesn’t exist. Challenges everyone to a personal response, not a government one, to poverty and to ask ourselves “What shall we do?” Gives examples and concludes that all can do something and that whatever work of mercy we perform we “do it for love of Jesus, in His humanity, for love of our brother, for love of our enemy.” Points to the scandal of the wealth of the Church and thanks God for the sacraments and the Word in the Scriptures–our light and our food. (DDLW #560). Ave Maria, December 3, 1966, pp.21-22, 29.
ByDorothy Day
*Summary: Through graphic stories of guests at the Worker she distinguishes between poverty (“the poor have some hope.) and destitution (”The destitute are ill and lonely, the hopeless ones.“) Also distinguishes poverty, voluntary poverty, and holy poverty. Keywords: anarchism, pacifist (DDLW #838).*The Catholic Worker, April 1966, 5, 8.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Asks for help in “this seemingly hopeless and profligate task of feeding the poor.” Says she is looking on the face of Christ in the poor she meets in her travels. Keywords: war, poverty (DDLW #824). The Catholic Worker, April 1965, 2.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Spends four joyful months caring for her grandchildren while her daughter Tamar attends practical nursing school. Describes the struggle against the cold at their women’s house of hospitality and challenging discussions about whether they are doing what they advocate (cult, culture, cultivation). Long quote from Gandhi on voluntary poverty. (DDLW #821). The Catholic Worker, January 1965, 1, 2, 6, 8.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Links a life of poverty (not destitution) and prayer as exemplified by Carroll McCool at St. Colette house in Oakland, CA. Quotes him at length on the life of prayer. (DDLW #644). The Catholic Worker, February 1953, 2, 6
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Describes the struggle in establishing farming communes as Peter Maurin taught. Poverty, toil, and suffering are bore by the young families trying to live on the land. She writes to comfort these fellow workers who live day by day. (DDLW #641). The Catholic Worker, December 1952, 3, 6.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: A detailed account of a visit to the Blessed Martin House of Hospitality in Memphis where Helen Caldwell Day cares for the children of women cotton pickers. The problems of poverty. Urges use of spiritual weapons–poverty, precarity, self-denial, suffering. Says that only love can overcome the evil in the world. (DDLW #640). The Catholic Worker, November 1952, 1, 4.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Deep in winter at her daughter’s farm in West Virginia they await the birth of Tamar’s third child. Reflects on country life and a woman’s spirituality in the midst of small children and housework. Describes her efforts at prayer. Reflects on the handicrafts Tamar practices and the worth of a country economy, a way to be co-creators with God. Notes the duty to find joy and resist despair. Long quotes from Eric Gill on a decentralized economy. Keywords: family, poverty, personalism, distributism, capitalism, socialism, communism. (DDLW #476: Catholic Worker Books, New York, 1948, pp. 3-26.)
ByDorothy Day
Summary: A vivid description of a young woman leaving St. Joseph’s house by ambulance to have her baby. Expresses joy at the child’s birth even in the midst of poverty and a time of war. “With the woman the suffering brought forthy life. In war, death.” (DDLW #186). The Catholic Worker, January 1941, 1,7.
ByDorothy Day
Summary: Tours a town of shacks and learns of their desperate straits. Interviews town residents. Says Christ suffers with them and asks God to have pity on them and us “who permit such things to be.” (DDLW #941). The Catholic Worker, Mar 1940, p. 5
ByDorothy Day
“Man cannot live by bread alone, not even one dollar and eighty-two cents worth. Neither can a woman.” Dorothy Day’s humorous article about trying to live on $5 a week, the typical wage of young working women. (New York Call Monday, December 18, 1916, page 2.)
