tinylittlehobbit's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
4.75
I loved this. I love seeing the works of mercy lived out, and yesss for left wing Catholicism. I would've liked it a little longer though and timelines would've been helpful. Other than that, perfect though.
rachelb36's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book by Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, which includes a newspaper, hospitality houses, breadlines, political action, with a special emphasis on voluntary poverty and anti-war beliefs.
Day talks about the founding of the Movement, and also highlights a few people who were instrumental in the work, including co-founder Peter Maurin. These mini-biographies were not as interesting to me as the rest of the book, but it did help to give a well-rounded view of the work.
I loved how matter-of-factly she wrote, sharing the good and the bad. She states on page 54, "How to understand people, portray people - that is the problem... And so I... write of things as they really were, for the comfort of others - for many in this world have old or sick or sinful people with whom they have to live, whom they have to love."
A couple more quotes that are worth reading and remembering:
"If every family that professed to follow Scriptural teaching... were to [try to care for one more], there would be no need for huge institutions, houses of dead storage where human beings waste away in loneliness and despair. Responsibility must return to the parish... to the group, to the family, to the individual." p 192
"I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once... We need always to be thinking and writing about it, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it. So many good souls who visit us tell us how they were brought up in poverty, but how, through hard work and cooperation, their parents managed to educate all the children... They contend that healthful habits and a stable family situation enable people to escape from the poverty class, no matter how mean the slum they may once have been forced to live in. The argument runs, so why can't everybody do it? No, these people don't know about the poor. Their concept of poverty is of something as neat and well-ordered as a nun's cell." p 67
Note: Since Day was Catholic, there are mentions of praying for the dead and the like. While I didn't always agree with her religious or political views, her work with The Catholic Worker was very interesting to read about.
Day talks about the founding of the Movement, and also highlights a few people who were instrumental in the work, including co-founder Peter Maurin. These mini-biographies were not as interesting to me as the rest of the book, but it did help to give a well-rounded view of the work.
I loved how matter-of-factly she wrote, sharing the good and the bad. She states on page 54, "How to understand people, portray people - that is the problem... And so I... write of things as they really were, for the comfort of others - for many in this world have old or sick or sinful people with whom they have to live, whom they have to love."
A couple more quotes that are worth reading and remembering:
"If every family that professed to follow Scriptural teaching... were to [try to care for one more], there would be no need for huge institutions, houses of dead storage where human beings waste away in loneliness and despair. Responsibility must return to the parish... to the group, to the family, to the individual." p 192
"I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once... We need always to be thinking and writing about it, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it. So many good souls who visit us tell us how they were brought up in poverty, but how, through hard work and cooperation, their parents managed to educate all the children... They contend that healthful habits and a stable family situation enable people to escape from the poverty class, no matter how mean the slum they may once have been forced to live in. The argument runs, so why can't everybody do it? No, these people don't know about the poor. Their concept of poverty is of something as neat and well-ordered as a nun's cell." p 67
Note: Since Day was Catholic, there are mentions of praying for the dead and the like. While I didn't always agree with her religious or political views, her work with The Catholic Worker was very interesting to read about.
sxtwo's review against another edition
3.0
Some really challenging stuff in this book. I need to learn more about the Catholic Worker Movement.
msstewart's review against another edition
5.0
I found this more engrossing than The Long Loneliness. That book was good background on Dorothy's life, but this one really dived into the life of the Catholic Worker communities.
davidewright_philosophy's review against another edition
4.0
This volume contained several striking and informative stories about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker (CW) movement and provides a more substantial discussion of the delightful oddity of her co-founder Peter Maurin than one finds in Day's other writings (he is mentioned throughout the book, though Day includes a special profile of him and other CW figures like Ammon Hennacy in the third section of the book. She is also very candid, as always, about the challenges besetting the CW and she manages to walk the line nicely between sharing about the good work that they do while avoiding boastfulness.
The subtitle of the book "The Inspiring Story of the Catholic Worker Movement" does contain that dreaded "blurbish" term 'inspiring' but I suspect Day meant just that by including it in the title--she wants people to be moved by what she shares. Toward the close of the book, she writes, "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? When we begin to take the lowest place, to wash the feet of others, to love our brothers with that burning love, that passion, which led to the Cross, then we can truly say, 'Now I have begun.'" (215) If Day were writing from the comforts of an academic setting who was merely reporting the works of others or in a blog post after a summer missionary trip visiting the destitute, then it would be easy to dismiss this kind of talk as sentimentalized motivational-speak. But Day published those words after about three decades of dedicated work among the poor as a part of the CW movement. She was there on the breadlines, living in daily community with many that society had rejected, writing the appeals for financial support, going to jail for civil disobedience, all of it--day after week after month after year. And yet, from what I can tell, she saw each day as a challenge to live out her ideals to each person with whom she engaged. By no means was she resting on what she had already done--each day brought its own trials and opportunities to grow in solidarity with her ideals. As I read the book, Day felt confident in the central ideas that guided her life, yet she saw plainly that there was plenty more to learn. But to see what she did learn and what she stood for, at least in part, this book should be quite helpful to the inquiring reader.
The subtitle of the book "The Inspiring Story of the Catholic Worker Movement" does contain that dreaded "blurbish" term 'inspiring' but I suspect Day meant just that by including it in the title--she wants people to be moved by what she shares. Toward the close of the book, she writes, "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? When we begin to take the lowest place, to wash the feet of others, to love our brothers with that burning love, that passion, which led to the Cross, then we can truly say, 'Now I have begun.'" (215) If Day were writing from the comforts of an academic setting who was merely reporting the works of others or in a blog post after a summer missionary trip visiting the destitute, then it would be easy to dismiss this kind of talk as sentimentalized motivational-speak. But Day published those words after about three decades of dedicated work among the poor as a part of the CW movement. She was there on the breadlines, living in daily community with many that society had rejected, writing the appeals for financial support, going to jail for civil disobedience, all of it--day after week after month after year. And yet, from what I can tell, she saw each day as a challenge to live out her ideals to each person with whom she engaged. By no means was she resting on what she had already done--each day brought its own trials and opportunities to grow in solidarity with her ideals. As I read the book, Day felt confident in the central ideas that guided her life, yet she saw plainly that there was plenty more to learn. But to see what she did learn and what she stood for, at least in part, this book should be quite helpful to the inquiring reader.
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