Loaves and Fishes

An excellent story about Christian Ministry through the efforts of the Catholic Worker Movement and its founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. Day writes a clear and moving description of the heartache and blessings that are so much a part of ministry to the lost and forsaken. Moving accounts of the call to the social justice for the poor and marginalized in America. Her inspirational journey calls others to join the Catholic Worker Movement to provide for the masses that suffer daily. The Long Loneliness also by Day is a must read as a companion to Loaves and Fishes

In Loaves and Fishes Dorothy Day tells the story of the Catholic Worker movement. It is a story of faith in action; the working out of the Word of God in day to day living. The adventure that began one day in the early 1930's led to the establishment of a radical newspaper (for clarification of thought), houses of hospitality (to give the rich an opportunity to serve the poor), and communitarian farms (to confront issues of unemployment, delinquency, rootlessness, and hunger). I was struck by the matter of fact way in which Day describes the lifestyle that flowed through all of this; "We were to reach the people by practicing the works of mercy, which meant feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, sheltering the harborless, and so on. We were to do this by being poor ourselves, giving everything we had; then others would give, too". She goes on to write, "'A spectacle to the world, to angels and to men...the off-scouring of all,' St. Paul said, and that is what we became. The trouble was, we could not know when to stop...we soon began to have a community, and it was pretty much a community of the poor". It becomes clear that Dorothy Day and those with whom she worked saw none of this as extraordinary. Rather, it was a natural consequence of following Jesus. This is something that we who are comfortable in the church today need to meditate on. Towards the end of the book Day expresses regret that not more was accomplished. But then she adds, "The consolation is this - and this is our faith too: By our suffering and our failures, by our acceptance of the Cross, by our struggle to grow in faith, hope, and charity, we unleash forces that help to overcome the evil in the world".

So says Dorothy Day in "Loaves and Fishes" (p. 177), and it is both the heart of the book's message and the central theme of her adult life. Thank goodness Orbis has reprinted this classic personal history of the Catholic Worker movement and the colorful saints in its ranks. In the book, Dorothy tells how her depression-era meeting with Peter Maurin birthed first a newspaper, then a hospitality house, then a national movement. In addition, Dorothy tries to explain the underlying theological and spiritual principles of the Catholic Workers: the resistance to power structures that cynically refuse to care for society's most vulnerable; the Christ-inspired conviction that voluntary poverty (or what Dorothy called "precarity") is a mechanism for social reform as well as a transformative sharing in redemptive suffering; that the duty of Christians is to collaborate with God in the creation of God's Kingdom; and that in society as it's currently structured, one is either on the side of the poor or one is an exploiter--there's no fence-sitting. As Peter Maurin says (quoted by Dorothy, p. 86): "We cannot see our brother [or sister] in need without stripping ourselves. It is the only [genuine] way we have of showing our love." Reading Dorothy Day, as I try to do every year, is a reminder both of how far from the Gospel message most of us who call ourselves Christians live, and how wonderfully easy, joyful, and liberating living that message would actually be. By both her example and writings, Dorothy invites us to ask ourselves why we hold back from doing what we know is right, and inspires us to roll up our sleeves and accept the Gospel challenge. Let her have the final word here (p. 176):"One of the greatest evils of the day...is [a] sense of futility. People say, What good can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transorm all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes."

This book contains the highlights and experiences of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. It is a very enjoyable book. The philosophy and beliefs are brought out in a series of experiences, many of them humorous, about the unique characters, role models and lessons learned in trying to adopt an early Christian communal attitude to charity and bring it to the streets of New York City. Dorothy Day lived her beliefs intently. Over the decades it resulted in running many urban soup kitchens, Hospitality houses, a farm or two, along with publishing the Catholic Worker Newspaper and authoring this very inspiring book.. This book will make you think,

At a time when the "mainstream" media insists on appointing the Christian Coalition and other groups of their ilk as voices of the Gospel in todays world, we are reminded of how much the life, words, and witness of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker are needed. Back in print in the handsome edition, "Loaves and Fishes" tells the history of the movement founded by Day and Peter Maurin. In an era when far too many associate Christianity with indifference to Christ's poor, and the embracement of intolerant and spiteful political agendas, the voice of prophets like Day are sorely needed.