By Peter Maurin
From: Easy Essays (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010).
Feeding the Poor—At a Sacrifice
In the first centuries
of Christianity
the hungry were fed
at a personal sacrifice,
the naked were clothed
at a personal sacrifice,
the homeless were sheltered
at a personal sacrifice.
And because the poor
were fed, clothed and sheltered
at personal sacrifice,
the pagans used to say
about the Christians
“See how they love each other.”
In our own day
the poor are no longer
fed, clothed, and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
but at the expense
of the taxpayers
And because the poor
are no longer
fed, clothed, and sheltered
the pagans say about the Christians
“See how they pass the buck.”
Dorothy Day
From: Commonweal, Nov. 4, 1949.
The spiritual works of mercy are: to admonish the sinner, to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to bear wrongs patiently, to forgive all injuries, and to pray for the living and the dead.
The corporal works are to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to ransom the captive, to harbor the harborless, to visit the sick, to bury the dead.
When Peter Maurin talked about the necessity of practicing the works of mercy, he meant all of them, and he envisions houses of hospitality in poor parishes in every city of the country, where these precepts of Our Lord could be put into effect. He pointed out that we have turned to State responsibility through home relief, social legislation and social security, and we no longer practice personal responsibility for our brother, but are repeating the words of the first murderer, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Not that our passing the buck is as crude as all that…
Peter Maurin, the founder of The Catholic Worker, was very much an apostle to the world today, not only to the poor. He was a prophet with a social message and he wanted to reach the people with it. To get to the people, he pointed out it was necessary to embrace voluntary poverty, to strip yourself, which would give you the means to practice the works of mercy. To reach the man in the street you must go to the street. To reach the workers, you begin to study a philosophy of labor, useful labor, instead of white collar work. To be the least, to be the worker, to be poor, to take the lowest place and thus be the spark which would set afire the love of meant towards each other and to God (and we can only show our love for God by our love for our fellows). These were Peter’s ideas, and they are indispensable for the performing of the works of mercy…
The works of mercy are a wonderful stimulus to our growth in faith as well as in love. Our faith is taxed to the utmost and so grows through this strain put upon it. It is pruned again and again, and bearing much fruit. For anyone starting to live literally the words of the Fathers of the Church, “the bread you retain belongs to the hungry, the dress you lock up is the property of the naked,” “what is superfluous for one’s need is to be regarded as plunder if one retains it for one’s self,” there is always a trial ahead. “Our faith, more precious than gold, must be tried as though by fire.” Here is a letter we received today. “I took a gentleman seemingly in need of spiritual and temporal guidance into my home on a Sunday afternoon. Let him have a nap on my bed, went through the want ads with him, made coffee and sandwiches for him, and when he left, I found my wallet had gone also.”
I can only say that the Saints would only bow their heads and not try to understand or judge. They received no thanks — well then, God had to repay them. They forbore to judge, and it was as though they took off their cloak besides their coat to give away. This is expecting heroic charity of course. But these things happen for our discouragement, for our testing. We are sowing the seed of love, and we are not living in the harvest time so that we can expect a crop. We must love to the point of folly, and we are indeed fools, as our Lord Himself was who died for such a one as this. We lay down our lives too when we have performed so painfully thankless an act, because this correspondent of ours is poor in this world’s goods. It is agony to go through such bitter experiences, because we all want to love, we desire with a great longing to love our fellows, and our hearts are often crushed at such rejections. But a Carmelite nun said to me last week, “It is the crushed heart which is the soft heart, the tender heart,” and maybe it is one way to become meek and humble of heart like Jesus.
Such an experience is crueler than that of our young men in Baltimore who were arrested for running a disorderly house, i.e., our St. Anthony’s house of hospitality, and whoo spent a few nights in jail. Such an experience is crueler than that which happened to one of our men here in New York who was attacked (for his pacifism) by a maniac with a knife in our kitchen. Actually to shed one’s blood is a less bitter experience.
Well, our friend has suffered from his experience and it is part of the bitterness of the poor, who cheat each other, who exploit each other, even as they are exploited. Who despise each other even as they are the despised.
And is it to be expected that virtue and destitution should go together? No, as John Cogley has written, they are the destitute in every way, destitute of this world’s goods, destitute of honor, of gratitude, of love, and they need so much, that we cannot take the works of mercy apart, and say I will do this one, or that one work of mercy. We find they all go together.
Some years ago there was an article in Commonweal by Georges Bernanos. He ended his article as I shall end mine, paraphrasing his words, and it is a warning note for those apocalyptic times: “Every particle of Christ’s divine charity is today more precious for your security — for your security, I say — than all the atom bombs in all the stock piles.” It is by the works of mercy that we shall be judged.
Revitalizing Our Church