Small is Beautiful at the New Jersey Catholic Worker
Plus: Pop-up Catholic Worker; a pilgrimage to prison; Jeff Dietrich's journey to the CW; and Stanley Vishnewsi meets Peter Maurin.
My Pop-Up Catholic Worker
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of hosting an open house for Dmytro and his family here in Winona. Dmytro had reached out to the CatholicWorker.org website as part of a long-shot cold-call email blast to dozens of church-affiliated organizations in the U.S.: “Hello! My name is Dmytro, I am Ukrainian and currently in Ukraine. I am looking for protection for my family of three people from the Russian terror here.”
The letter went on to explain that his younger brother had profound autism but had not been receiving any treatment or professional care since the war began due to medical resources being diverted to the war effort. The United States had opened its doors to Ukrainian war refugees, but refugees needed an American sponsor willing to take responsibility for their care before they would be admitted under the humanitarian parole program…hence the email blast.
To make a long story short, after trying to find a sponsor for him for several months, I finally ended up sponsoring him myself. Fortunately, a really great group of people stepped forward to do all the on-the-ground assistance in the Twin Cities, which is about 100 miles from where I live. Dozens of people in the Winona area donated $15,000 to help re-settle the family—money that was all the more necessary after government funding ran out for Ukrainian refugees in October 2023.
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The gathering was an opportunity for the family, now including Dmytro’s Ukrainian girlfriend, to meet some of their Winona supporters. It was also a way for people in Winona to meet the amazing volunteers who shuttled the family to medical appointments, government offices, and food shelves for the past six months.
It was a celebration, too, of how far the family has come since they arrived in December. In that time, they have completed a mountain of paperwork, settled in a new apartment, and received much-needed medical care. Dmytro has learned how to drive, obtained a license, and landed a job. His autistic brother is on his way to getting the services he needs, and the whole family—especially Dmytro’s mother—is slowly healing from the trauma of the violence they witnessed.
In many ways, the community that has sprung up spontaneously around this family—a dozen core members, and perhaps as many as one hundred others—reminds me a lot of the Catholic Worker. Call it a pop-up Catholic Worker, then, minus the philosophical and theological framework. It just goes to show that you don’t need a house of hospitality to perform the works of mercy, a point underlined by Theo Kayser and Lydia Wong during their recent interview with Alex Addesso of the Elizabeth, New Jersey, Catholic Worker. (An excerpt from their interview follows below.)
For that matter, you don’t even need to put a philosophical or theological label like “the works of mercy” on what you are doing—although I think having that “deep language” can be profoundly helpful.
It is entirely appropriate to celebrate the outpouring of goodness that has helped this one family escape the terror of war and begin a journey of healing. Yes, to celebrating this spontaneous community of hope and healing; but also, being rooted in the Catholic Worker tradition, I can’t help but recall the words of Dorothy Day in The Long Loneliness:
“There was a great question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying social evils instead of avoiding them in the first place? … Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?”
Yes, then, to the work of resettling, rebuilding, and healing the wounds of war. But, also: Let us change the social order so that war might be done away with, and its many evils avoided in the first place.
Jerry
P.S. On a more mundane note, no part three of the Christ room series this week, I’m afraid. It’s just been that kind of week. Ever have a week like that? Okay; next week, then.
P.P.S. If you are an artist who would like to contribute original work to Roundtable or CatholicWorker.org, please reach out at info@catholicworker.org.
FEATURED
In the New Jersey CW, Small is Beautiful
In a recent episode of the Coffee with Catholic Workers podcast, Theo Kayser and Lydia Wong interviewed Alexandria Addesso, founder of the Elizabeth, New Jersey, Catholic Worker. Alex talked about her journey to the Catholic Worker; her time at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker; and coming home to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to found a Catholic Worker there. Their conversation touched on the intersection of Catholicism and anarchism, mutual aid, the pros and cons of registering a Catholic Worker as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, and the ups and downs of operating a Catholic Worker largely on her own.
You can listen to the podcast or read the complete transcript at CatholicWorker.org. Here are a few excerpts, somewhat abridged to fit this newsletter:
Lydia Wong: Maybe could you share a little bit about the things that you learned or found meaningful while you were in L.A. and maybe compare that a little bit to the things that you now are learning and finding meaningful in Elizabeth?
Alexandria Addesso: Yeah, I'm a strong believer that you can't replicate the same thing everywhere. Different communities have different needs. But I did leave L.A. with the idea that this is how we do it, this is how it's done. And from the start, it was not like that. The idea that, okay, we need a house—we need a house or at least a rental place to live and shelter people. That was the goal for a while. It's still the goal, but I had to find out that we don't have to do it exactly like anybody else.
The core things that I took from L.A. … feeding people. Make sure people eat. … We clothe people, too. Keeping things nonviolent. Never involving the police in issues. That's always been a big thing, making sure that whatever space we use, it's police-free as much as we could. De-escalation. Trying to be a part of activism as much as we can, but not as much as out there (in L.A.). … The structure—I do feel like it is good to have structure. It's always been important to, we serve at this time, on this day … just give people that stability, to know that we're always going to be here. We serve on Mondays. … Things that are different (from LACW)— like I said before, almost everything.
Lydia Wong: So I think a lot of people, when they think about the Catholic Worker, get really intimidated by it because it feels like you have to do all these things, like housing people, starting with this full house of hospitality and doing all these aspects of it. What sort of advice would you have for people who want to be involved in the Catholic Worker but don't know how to get started?
Alexandria Addesso: I think the easiest thing, first off, is if you live near a Catholic Worker, volunteer. I mean, I understand how it could be intimidating to just like go down, you don't know nobody. I think most Catholic Workers could use a hand in one way or another. Also, if you're somebody like me that's taking a plunge to try to start one, I would say the biggest thing that I had to learn was all Catholic Workers don't have to look alike, almost none do. They can have different missions, they can do different work, not the same mission but carried out in different ways.
Like I said, when I started, I thought we needed a house and we needed to serve food and I felt like I was failing in the first year or two because I didn't have these things. But if you look at the whole movement, there's so many different things: there's food distros, there's child care, there's farms, there's houses, there's houses where they rent out houses to people or they're not even in the house, they're letting people live in the house. There's so many different ways that this work is done.
I think as long as you understand the truest mission of the movement, helping people, anti-war, anti-nuke, all these things, then as long as that's your goal, you have to find out what works for your community, what's the people in your community, what is their need? Because that's the biggest thing at the end of the day. As a person, as an anarchist, and how I believe in making anarchism work is every community has different needs. What's going on in Chicago is not the same as what's happening in New Jersey or Hawaii. What are the needs of your community? What's going to benefit them the most?
Theo Kayser: You mentioned anarchism just a second ago there, Alex. One thing I love about you…is that you are an anarchist, kind of an hardcore person. You're pretty into the Catholic thing, like you said, that's what drew you into it in the first place. For folks who are unfamiliar with the intersection of those things, who might be confused about the relationship between holding Catholicism and holding anarchism, can you speak to that and what it means to you?
Alexandria Addesso: Yeah. I can definitely see how people can see those things as contradictory because of the hierarchy that is within Catholicism. I really just say that my politics influence my religion and my religion, or my faith, influences my politics. I wouldn't be one without the other.
At the end of the day, I feel like living out my morals, my principles, is all I really try to do. For me, I think Catholic social teaching is very important and influential on what I believe when it comes to anarchism. I also believe, if you read the Bible, a lot of it is, we're told again and again that allegiance to the state is not the best thing. A lot of bad things happen when you have allegiance to the state.
… At the end of the day. I live out my anarchist beliefs by helping other people and other people helping me. The fact that we don't need the state, we don't need the government. We can do this ourselves if we care about each other. In my mind, to really have anarchism work, you have to be communal. We have to be communal in some way. … What does Jesus say? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned. To me, it makes a lot of sense. …
To me, I feel like if I want to be a good Catholic, I can't have allegiance to this state, especially where we live, the empire, the United States. I can't have allegiance to the state that's killing people. I can't have allegiance to the state that's funding genocide. I can't have allegiance to the state that so many people are starving and homeless here. You know what I'm saying? How can I have allegiance to that? How can I pay taxes to that? … If I'm doing that, is that idolatrous?
Lydia Wong: So, what else should we know about you, Alex, or the Elizabeth Catholic Worker? Things that we haven't asked about yet that could be interesting?
Alexandria Addesso: I don't know. Something interesting? I think there's, like, a cool camaraderie—and maybe this is an everywhere thing—but there's a cool camaraderie about the people we serve and us. Me personally, I'm from the city, so I feel like there's a deeper connection. Like I said, I see people that I grew up with come by. … So it's a deep connection: we hang out, we play music sometimes. There's been a couple of regulars that come to get food from us, sometimes we go play pool afterwards….
To me, I do really believe like this is mutual aid because, personally, me, I've been down and out. I've been no place to stay and I've always had somebody look me out, especially in this community. You know what I'm saying? Like, I've had that. So I feel like this is just, I don't want to use the word “giving back,” but it's kind of like a circular thing, you know?
There's people that come and get food from us that give so much. There's this one gentleman that has been coming for all five years, right? When we didn't have a table, we were just serving off the benches outside, he brought me a table. Out of nowhere, he found a whole bunch of nice pots. We use these pots for soup still today. Actually, he's hitting me up today because he found something else. He's a very resourceful gentleman, you know what I'm saying? …
Or people will come and get food and get clothes and then out of nowhere, they want to help. … There's a woman that had started by just coming and getting stuff, and now she's with us almost a year or two, and she's a feisty Ecuadorian lady, doesn't speak English but she's at the front of the food line. She regulates everything like: oh wait, no, don't do this, don't do that. She gets a little feisty with people, but she's a huge help. She does so much and she was just a person that was coming by. Incorporating people that were coming maybe just to get food or clothes at that one point, and now they're such a big part of what we do—that’s very important. We all need help.
Elsewhere in their interview, Alex and hosts Theo and Lydia discuss the tensions around holding work while living at a Catholic Worker house, as well as the pros and cons of having tax-exempt nonprofit status. And in their post-interview discussion, Theo and Lydia expand on the idea that someone doesn’t have to be doing “all the things” to be living in the spirit of the Catholic Worker. Listen or read here.
Jeff Dietrich’s Journey to a New Life
After refusing induction into the army, a 24-year-old Jeff Dietrich hit the road. Hitchhiking first to Europe, then back across the United States, he was searching for an “alternate American dream”—one that didn’t require him to kill his country’s adversaries in Vietnam.
With the Jesus Prayer constantly on his lips, he finally found what he was looking for when he met a band of Catholic Workers on their way to a peace conference. Through another set of twists and turns, he finally ended up at the newly formed Los Angeles Catholic Worker, where he was immediately made editor of the community’s yet-to-be-published newspaper, The Catholic Agitator. He would spend the next fifty years there as part of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, working with his wife and others to create community on Skid Row.
“It was an answer to prayer,” Dietrich recalled to an audience at De Paul University on May 13. The occasion for his talk was his acceptance on behalf of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker of the Fourth Annual Berrigan–McAlister Award for the Practice of Christian Nonviolence.
Dietrich provided Roundtable with the text of his talk, which is also published in the June 2024 Catholic Agitator; here’s an excerpt:
I stuck out my thumb and hitch-hiked across the continent from California to New York with a Jack Kerouac On The Road kind of romanticism, in search of an alternative dream. In retrospect it was a kind of a quest, a quest to find a vision for my life.
While staying with friends in New York, I visited a bookstore where I encountered a book by Robert S. De Ropp called Beyond the Drug Experience which in retrospect saved my life. It explained several methods of meditation, because I had been reading Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger at the time. I choose the Jesus prayer quoted in the book: “Jesus Christ, son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner,” as my mantra. You have lots of time while waiting on the road for rides and because I had also been reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha—as all good hippies did in 1970—a meditation on Buddhist ideals, I thought it would be better to recite the Jesus prayer than reciting the “snap crackle pop” Rice Crispies jingle in my head. So, I recited my “Jesus Prayer Mantra” while waiting on the side of the road for rides, when I was lonely, frightened or in awkward situations. What I did not know at the time, was this mantra was a secret, muffled cry to heaven for my very life.
I set out on my low budget quest to find my alternative dream by trying to buy the cheapest ticket possible to anywhere in Europe. At the time Icelandic Airlines was the cheapest, but they were not flying into Brussels as they usually did, so I bought a ticket to Iceland, thinking I would find a job on a fishing boat to Europe. After spending a week of hospitality in a commune of young students in Iceland, I finally sailed to Denmark.
When I arrived in Denmark, I was desolate, lonely, and cold, missing family and friends. I slept in abandoned trucks and railway cars when it rained, in open fields, behind shrubs, and under park benches when the weather turned nice. I woke up one morning in Spain to find myself in a city dump and on another morning with a donkey licking my face. I took the train to Marrakesh and smuggled hashish in an ornate Moroccan table, but I was still praying as I walked the dark and lonely back roads in Portugal with a flashlight in hand, visiting the spectacular Alhambra in Spain, and also spending freezing cold summer days in London parks and public libraries because I had sent my winter jacket back home.
I was still praying when I landed back in the U.S.
I fully expected to be arrested for draft refusal when I stepped off the plane from Europe but much to my surprise and relief (and luck) I was not arrested. I spent the night in Kennedy International Airport. While there I read my first English language newspapers in 6 months. I read about multiple murders, killings, beatings and the death of a solitary. hitchhiker. “Jesus Christ have mercy on me.” Though I was frightened by the brutality of my native land, I stuck out my thumb with more bluff and bravado than sensibleness. I had 5 dollars in my pocket, not wanting to wire home for money.
I was still praying, when two days later I was on an offramp outside of St. Louis, Missouri; I still had the same 5 dollars in my pocket and a Volkswagen van picked me up: “We’re goin’ to a Peacemakers Conference,” they said, “You want to go?”
I thought to myself, well I have refused induction into the U.S. military, and I have refused to kill, so I guess I am a Peacemaker.
It could have been a rainbow, hippie, dope smoking gathering but instead it was a gathering of legitimate peacemakers who had served prison time for refusing induction into World War II; who had been beaten on Freedom Rides to the South, and protested every war and weapons system their country could devise. They lived simply, refused to pay federal taxes for war, and they challenged my youthful disdain for seniors.
I was after all of the generation who thought that you could not trust anyone over thirty though some of the peacemakers were over fifty! I was misguided in my thinking because I had never been introduced to folks who had lived their entire lives in an ethical and righteous manner. Unbeknownst to me I was about to meet yet another group of young Catholic Workers who were about to change my life.
Though I grew up Catholic, was an altar boy, attended Catholic schools most of my life, I had never heard of Dorothy Day and her radical band of subversive Catholic Workers who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless and agitated for peace against the current war in Vietnam.
The young people from the Milwaukee Catholic Worker were coming from the trial of the Milwaukee 14, in which their founder, Mike Cullen, lead thirteen others in burning draft files. When I heard what they had done a light went on in my very soul. I thought that is what Jesus would be doing if he were alive today: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless and BURNING DRAFT FILES!! All at once my political, anti-war, convictions came into alignment with my somewhat dormant, spiritual, Catholic convictions. It was an answer to prayer!
Read the text of the entire talk at CatholicWorker.org.
Two CWers Begin 100-km Pilgrimage for Peace on Their Way to Prison
Two Catholic Workers, Susan Crane of Redwood City, California, and Susan van der Hijden of Amsterdam, set off on a 100-kilometer Pilgrimage for Freedom from Nuclear Execution on Friday, the Feast of the Visitation, according to the website of the Amsterdam Catholic Worker. At the end of the pilgrimage, both women will enter a woman’s prison, where they will begin serving sentences of 229 and 115 days, respectively, for repeatedly entering Büchel Air Base in Germany to advocate for a nuclear-free world.
The walk commenced on May 31 with a vigil at the main gate of Büchel Air Base, where 18 people formed a circle holding banners. Susan van der Hijden spoke about the revolutionary story behind the Magnificat. Participants also placed posters of the Magnificat and a quote from Aaron Bushnell on the road to the main gate.
Although the police were aware of Susan van der Hijden's impending imprisonment, she was not taken into custody and will enter prison alongside Susan Crane on June 4. The group made several stops, including at the Fliegerkaserne Brauheck barracks, where they delivered letters to the base commander, and leafletted in Cochem before arriving in Ernst.
The women hope their sentences will amplify Mary's vision, inspire courage against oppression, and stand in solidarity with other marginalized women, advocating for a world without nuclear weapons.
A diary of the peace walk is being kept on the Amsterdam Catholic Worker website.
Letters to Susan Crane and Susan van der Hijden can be sent to:
Susan Crane or Susan van der Hijden
JVA Rohrbach
Peter-Caesar-Allee 1
55597 Wöllstein
Germany
For prison contact information, reach out to Chris Danowski at christiane.danowski@web.de or 0049 151 10726612.
THE ROUNDUP
“What follows are some lessons from April, 1968 that might be useful today, now that university occupations have reemerged as a tactic within the movement to halt the genocide in Gaza.” So begins a letter written by veterans of the 1968 occupations at Columbia and Yale, circulated by hand at the Columbia encampment in New York in April; the letter is reprinted in the June 2024 issue of the Catholic Agitator. The anonymous authors advise today’s student protesters that “occupations are effective because they are disruptive,” “an occupation needs to spread in order to survive,” “every occupation is a commune,” and “all movements are confronted by the separations of capitalist society.” Other articles in the issue include a remembrance of Bishop Tom Gumbleton by Mike Wisniewski, Robert Ellsberg’s 1978 prison letter, “Remember to be Light,” and "A Letter to the President of Niagara University on Their ROTC Program" by Scott Fina. Read the issue here: June 2024 Catholic Agitator.
The term “culture warrior” ought to be dismissed “since it is at best a vacuous term meaning whatever we want it to mean,” writes Dr. Larry Chapp in Catholic World Report. “At worse it is a derisive term designed to malign in order to dismiss.” Chapp, who operates the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania, challenges the idea that morality cannot be legislated, citing the example of the civil rights movements. Read the essay: On culture wars and the hypocrisy of the Catholic Left.
The Elizabeth, New Jersey, Catholic Worker is appealing for donations to help it need higher rent on its location. Donations may be mailed to: Elizabeth Catholic Worker, PO Box 2203, Elizabeth NJ 07207. See the community’s Facebook announcement here.
Martha and Kate Hennessy were interviewed for a recent episode of the Student Christian Movement podcast. The pair shared their experiences with the Catholic Worker, discussed its contemporary work, and explored the intersection of political theology and practice. Catch it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Overcast.
CALENDAR
June 3 - June 7 | Cuba City, Wisconsin
Stories of the Land: Decolonization, Earth Regeneration, & Spiritual Ecology
June 24 | Virtual event, Maurin Academy
Eating Up Easter Film Screening
August 10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
CW Memorial & Action at Vandenberg Space Force Base
September 6-7 | Chicago
Peter Maurin Conference
September 12-15 | Sugar Creek, Iowa
Midwest Catholic Worker Gathering
A FEW GOOD WORDS
The Day I Met Peter Maurin
By Stanley Vishnewski. From Wings of the Dawn by Stanley Vishnewsi and reprinted in The Catholic Worker, May 1976.
The door opened. An old man came in. He wore a shabby, ill-fitting suit and heavy bob-nailed shoes. His pockets bulged with newspapers and pamphlets. I remember how the hob-nails in his shoes clattered against the wooden floor, as he went past us without speaking. I had the impression that he did not see us.
“That’s Peter Maurin,” Mary Sheehan said. “He writes the Easy Essays for the paper. He lives up in Harlem.”
I looked at the doorway through which the man had gone. I had thought that he was some “tramp” who had come in looking for something to eat.
Mary Sheehan must have sensed what I was thinking. “Peter doesn’t care how he looks,” she said. “He always has his nose stuck in a book. But what a brain he has. He knows everything about history. He could make a lot of money as a teacher.”
The envelopes were all addressed. I got up to leave. “Where are you going?” Mary Sheehan asked.
“Home,” I said.
She looked surprised. “Don’t you want to eat with us? Its almost five-oclock.”
“But. . . “I stammered.
“Oh, don’t be bashful,” Mary said. “Margaret expects you to stay for supper. There’s no sense going now. We will be eating in a few minutes.”
I sat down. Out in the kitchen I could hear plates being set down on the round table. Then there was silence. I looked at Mary. She smiled back. Margaret came to the doorway. “It is ready.”
I stepped aside to let Mary go ahead of me and then followed her into the kitchen. Peter Maurin was already sitting at the table. He was reading a pamphlet. Mary sat down next to him.
“Sit here,” Margaret told me. “I’ll put the food out” I noticed that there was an extra plate at the table. Margaret must have read my thoughts. “That’s the Christ plate. We always set an extra place for anyone who comes.”
I had not yet been introduced to Peter but he did not wait for an introduction. At that moment his face became alive and animated. He pointed his finger at me and said, “In the first centuries of Christianity the poor were fed, clothed and sheltered at a personal sacrifice and the Pagans said about the Christians: ‘See how they love each other.”‘
“Today,” he continued, “the poor are fed, clothed and sheltered by the politicians at the expense of the taxpayers.
“And because the poor are no longer fed, clothed, and sheltered at a personal sacrifice but at the expense of the taxpayers, Pagans say about the Christians: ‘See how they pass the buck.”‘
Peter spoke in a rhythmical sing-song. At that time I did not realize that he was reciting one of his own Easy Essays, but I had the feeling that he was quoting from something that had already been written. When he finished, he stared at me as if waiting for me to comment on what he had just said.
Margaret saved me from my embarrassment by asking Peter to say Grace. I bowed my head until it almost touched the plate. The meal consisted of meatballs, mashed potatoes, string beans, mushrooms, gravy, coffee, bread, butter and more slabs of apple pie.
“Someone gave us the food.” Margaret said. “We have to finish everything up or else it will spoil.”
Peter restrained from talking during the meal. Mary and Margaret did most of the talking. I just listened. During the course of the meal Margaret told Peter that I was a Lithuanian.
Peter put his fork down and looked at me through a pair of. glasses which were, perched precariously on the edge of his nose. “So you are a Lithuanian,” he said. “The Third Order of St. Francis was strong for many years in Lithuania.”
I was impressed by Peter’s remarks. He was the first person I had met, away from the Lithuanian community, who knew anything about my own culture. Most people didn’t even know where Lithuania was on the map.
“My people come from the country,” I said. “They were Lithuanian peasants.”
“I am a French peasant,” Peter said. “I was born on a farm in the Southern part of France. My family owned the farm for 1,500 years, since the time of St. Augustine. We had seven cows, some sheep and a mare. We used oxen to plow the fields. We raised most of the food we ate. My father worked the land until he was ninety years old.”
Peter had moved his chair in order to be closer to me. Margaret and Mary cleared the table and began to wash the dishes. Peter talked as though addressing an audience. He raised his voice slightly. He mentioned names of saints I had never heard of before.
Peter said, “In the Catholic Worker we must try to have the voluntary poverty of St. Francis, the charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the intellectual approach of St. Dominic, the easy conversations about things that matter of St. Philip Neri, the manual labor of St. Benedict.”
As Peter talked he rocked back and forth in his chair. Every once in a while, to emphasize a point, he would lean over and tap me on the knee. The wrinkles on his facie seemed to move up and down as he kept talking.
When he had concluded a statement he would stop talking and lean forward with his finger pointed at me. I, of course, said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. It was a new experience, for me, to have an adult treat me as an intellectual equal.
Later, I learned more about Peter’s methods of conducting discussions. He had expected me to make some comment on what he was saying. He had wanted me to state, what was on my mind. Once I had commented on what he had just said he would then have preceded to carry on, the conversation from there.
Peter would never dominate a conversation. He believed that a person had a right to finish a statement without being interrupted. He would never answer a question directly. “I am not a question box,” he would say, “I am a chatter box.”
I finally asked the question that was on my mind. “What is the purpose of The Catholic Worker?”
To this day I do not know what color his eyes were but I know that he looked at me more intently than anybody had ever looked at me before. Peter leaped up from his chair. He looked down at me.
“The purpose of the Catholic Worker,” he said, “is to create a society where it will, be easier for men to be good. A society where each person will consider himself to be his brother’s keeper. A society where each one will try to serve And to be the least. God wants us to be our brother’s keeper. He wants us to feed the hungry at a personal sacrifice. He wants us to clothe the naked at a personal sacrifice. He wants us to shelter the homeless. To serve man for God’s sake, that is what God wants us to do!”
I was fascinated by Peter’s flow of language and his learning. I was impressed by what he was saying. I had never met a man who talked as he did. I glanced around the room. Mary was playing with the cat who was named Social Justice. Margaret was holding her baby. I looked at the window and realized it was getting dark. But Peter was just warming up to his subject. I could sense that he was interested in me.
“We need enthusiasm.” Peter said. “Nothing can be accomplished in the work of social reconstruction without enthusiasm.”
I was happy to hear Peter say this. I realized that the only talent I had to offer was enthusiasm, enthusiasm and still more enthusiasm!
You can also find this essay at CatholicWorker.org.