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A year at the Catholic Worker
Marc H. Ellis recounts his spiritual journey among the poor in New York City in the early 1970s.
- GenresReligion
140 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Marc H. Ellis
35 books11 followersMarc H. Ellis is retired University Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University. Among his publications are Encountering the Jewish Future (2012), Reading the Torah Out Loud (2007), Practicing Exile (2001), Oh, Jerusalem! (1999), and Unholy Alliance (1997), all from Fortress Press. He is also a regular contributor on Mondoweiss: The War of Ideas in the Middle East with a series called Exile and the Prophetic.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 8, 2024
AN INSIGHTFUL ACCOUNT OF DOROTHY DAY’S MOVEMENT
Author Marc Ellis wrote in this 1978 book, “I was born and raised a Jew in … North Miami Beach, Florida. When I say born and raised I mean the secular Jewishness that has characterized so much of Jewish life in mid-20th century America. I attended Hebrew School until I was thirteen, had a Bar Mitzvah, and then quit Hebrew school altogether… College came. I immersed myself in a world of knowledge I had never known existed. In the spring of 1974, a series of discussions were held on campus concerning the nature of the Catholic Worker movement… Their stories were foreign to me. They talked about people who slept on sidewalks and people who were mentally deranged. Everyone was welcome regardless… After graduation … [I] decided that I would go up to the Catholic Worker for a year… I was to learn that an encounter with suffering could not be prepared for by rigorous discipline or prior thought… What follows is a journal of the year which I spent at the Catholic Worker on the Lower East Side of New York City.” (Pg. 21-24)
He explains in the Introduction, “Forty-five years ago the Catholic Worker movement began with the opening of a shared apartment as a house of hospitality, and the selling of the ‘Catholic Worker’ for a penny a copy… [Dorothy Day] understood capitalism to be a failure, a system that stripped the person of dignity and led to depression and war. But the… voice of anger booming on the street corners of America, seemed to promise only violence and confrontation… Her meeting with Peter Maurin was to show the way… [Peter] had read articles that Dorothy had written for Catholic magazines… and was determined that Dorothy should start on his program of social reconstruction.” (Pg. 12-15) He adds, “The act of making others aware through the Catholic Worker newspaper was a way of fulfilling her religious commitment in the social arena.” (Pg.16)
He summarizes, “Since the beginning in 1933, the Catholic Worker has lived out its beliefs with a fidelity that is peculiar to our age… the Worker has consistently supported decentralized forms of village and farm communities. Believing that one is personally responsible to the poor and the abandoned, Worker communities have typically been established in the slum areas of our great cities… the Worker has consistently opposed all forms of violence… the Catholic Worker movement has become a symbol for good in the world. But the radical simplicity of Catholic Worker thought and way of life… remains a challenge to good intentions and a mystery to the scholar and sometimes to the Catholic Worker people themselves.” (Pg. 17-18)
He outlines, “The daily schedule. Nine to nine-thirty breakfast… Nine-thirty to eleven fifteen, the soupmeal. Anybody can come in for a bowl of hot homemade soup, bread, and tea. Most soupmeal people… are homeless, sick, often beat-up, sometimes crazy and/or violent, mostly walking in a stupor… After the soupmeal, lunch is served from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty… [to] people who live and work in the house, and the Worker ‘family.’ … After lunch the tables are cleared, the floors swept, and the dinner menu decided. Between lunch… and dinner (five-thirty) the first floor is open to anyone who desires rest and community. Paradoxically, this is the time where violence occurs most frequently… the police… are NEVER called… Instead one tries… to carry on the day’s activities… as if everything were normal.. Dinner is hectic. The community is served a sitdown meal… When dinner ends around seven, the dishes are cleared…. And the place generally emptied… The Worker remains open till ten, and the time … is often quiet… But peace here seems the exception and the rule, once spoken, if often broken.” (Pg. 36-39)
He explains, “All the activities of the Worker are carried on by voluntary labor. Essentially there are three types of volunteers: the permanent, the semi-permanent, and the transient… An example of a semi-permanent volunteer is [one] who plans to be here a year… A transient volunteer … will probably stay at the Worker for two or three weeks.” (Pg. 41-43)
He reports, “My talks with Dorothy have revealed several recurring themes of hers. She draws a distinction between a poverty freely chosen in community and a forced destitution without community. The freely chosen poverty … is, for Dorothy, a response to the Gospel message… Forced destitution, on the other hand, represents the evils of our present society which does not care for others… She consistently speaks of Peter Maurin as the founder of the Worker… Dorothy insists that people are called to a vocation and that each person’s calling is different.” (Pg. 52)
He recalls, “At first my work consisted solely of doing dishes … I was appalled by the violence, by the looks and sickness of the men, and by their drunkenness. I had suddenly been tossed into a world of brutality and evil where all meaning had collapsed.” (Pg. 57)
He observes, “I could see that these Bowery ‘bums’ could not be stereotyped. The men are young and old and middle-aged, black and white and brown, Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic, immigrant and 3rd or 4th generation American. They are mostly somber; faces with no expression… few have teeth, most are lousy. The men become oblivious to the world, and walk through life like dead men. There is no pretense of hope among them… But is it not true that among these bent bodies and bowed heads, perhaps in the corner patiently waiting to be served a bowl of soup, is Jesus himself. This, it seems, is the pivotal point of Catholic Worker life… The Worker is totally radical: it believes in an all encompassing spiritual reality here on earth.” (Pg. 68-69)
He notes, “The Worker, as a Catholic lay group, attracts religiously sensitive people who, for one reason or another, have not entered formal religious life in the institutional Church. Foremost among these is people is Dorothy herself...” (Pg. 75) Later, he adds, “Here are women and men of all ages (19 years of age to 76), working without pay, without title, dressing from donated articles, and many times doing the same tasks… In short, we all do the dishes, sweep the floors, carry packages, as well as try to develop a spiritual vision.” (Pg. 82)
He admits, “These six months have introduced me to a new world of poverty, of broken lives, to new thoughts of what my place ought to be in a world filled with the oppressed… This, I suppose, is the perennial question… which forms the very heart of the Sermon on the Mount. One can hardly escape the feeling that this is the central question our century also.” (Pg. 87-88) Later, he adds, “The 20th century, after all has been an age of unparalleled brutality, reducing whole populations to destitution and death. I wonder if the faces in this basement are not simply reflections of our century in human flesh.” (Pg. 126)
He muses, “It seems that I am finally being accepted by the community itself. Those who live and work at the house, as well as the street people, really put you through a period of testing until they realize you are determined to stick with your work and survive. Then all of a sudden you are doing things right instead of wrong.” (Pg. 103)
He reflects, “Here there is no speech, no definition of character, no easy answer to who God is and what he does. Sometimes you feel God emerging from and merging into the experience of service. Perhaps it is in service that the spirit is found. It is not, to be sure, a large and bold God, but a subtle one. Sometimes you feel a presence suffering here with you and the others. Sometimes you feel a body being broken. At other times you feel yourself surrounded by grace.” (Pg. 108-109) He wonders, “Can we be ‘religious’ and be prosperous in a world filled with the oppressed? I know I cannot change the world but what should I do at least to live out what I believe to be right and just?” (Pg.. 128)
He concludes, “I will leave tomorrow with mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is a feeling of strength that I have survived the year and I chose to leave at the right time, and on the other hand, a feeling of sadness that my stay here is ending. It has been a long journey for me, one might even say a painful journey if I had not received so much in return.” (Pg. 134)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.
Author Marc Ellis wrote in this 1978 book, “I was born and raised a Jew in … North Miami Beach, Florida. When I say born and raised I mean the secular Jewishness that has characterized so much of Jewish life in mid-20th century America. I attended Hebrew School until I was thirteen, had a Bar Mitzvah, and then quit Hebrew school altogether… College came. I immersed myself in a world of knowledge I had never known existed. In the spring of 1974, a series of discussions were held on campus concerning the nature of the Catholic Worker movement… Their stories were foreign to me. They talked about people who slept on sidewalks and people who were mentally deranged. Everyone was welcome regardless… After graduation … [I] decided that I would go up to the Catholic Worker for a year… I was to learn that an encounter with suffering could not be prepared for by rigorous discipline or prior thought… What follows is a journal of the year which I spent at the Catholic Worker on the Lower East Side of New York City.” (Pg. 21-24)
He explains in the Introduction, “Forty-five years ago the Catholic Worker movement began with the opening of a shared apartment as a house of hospitality, and the selling of the ‘Catholic Worker’ for a penny a copy… [Dorothy Day] understood capitalism to be a failure, a system that stripped the person of dignity and led to depression and war. But the… voice of anger booming on the street corners of America, seemed to promise only violence and confrontation… Her meeting with Peter Maurin was to show the way… [Peter] had read articles that Dorothy had written for Catholic magazines… and was determined that Dorothy should start on his program of social reconstruction.” (Pg. 12-15) He adds, “The act of making others aware through the Catholic Worker newspaper was a way of fulfilling her religious commitment in the social arena.” (Pg.16)
He summarizes, “Since the beginning in 1933, the Catholic Worker has lived out its beliefs with a fidelity that is peculiar to our age… the Worker has consistently supported decentralized forms of village and farm communities. Believing that one is personally responsible to the poor and the abandoned, Worker communities have typically been established in the slum areas of our great cities… the Worker has consistently opposed all forms of violence… the Catholic Worker movement has become a symbol for good in the world. But the radical simplicity of Catholic Worker thought and way of life… remains a challenge to good intentions and a mystery to the scholar and sometimes to the Catholic Worker people themselves.” (Pg. 17-18)
He outlines, “The daily schedule. Nine to nine-thirty breakfast… Nine-thirty to eleven fifteen, the soupmeal. Anybody can come in for a bowl of hot homemade soup, bread, and tea. Most soupmeal people… are homeless, sick, often beat-up, sometimes crazy and/or violent, mostly walking in a stupor… After the soupmeal, lunch is served from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty… [to] people who live and work in the house, and the Worker ‘family.’ … After lunch the tables are cleared, the floors swept, and the dinner menu decided. Between lunch… and dinner (five-thirty) the first floor is open to anyone who desires rest and community. Paradoxically, this is the time where violence occurs most frequently… the police… are NEVER called… Instead one tries… to carry on the day’s activities… as if everything were normal.. Dinner is hectic. The community is served a sitdown meal… When dinner ends around seven, the dishes are cleared…. And the place generally emptied… The Worker remains open till ten, and the time … is often quiet… But peace here seems the exception and the rule, once spoken, if often broken.” (Pg. 36-39)
He explains, “All the activities of the Worker are carried on by voluntary labor. Essentially there are three types of volunteers: the permanent, the semi-permanent, and the transient… An example of a semi-permanent volunteer is [one] who plans to be here a year… A transient volunteer … will probably stay at the Worker for two or three weeks.” (Pg. 41-43)
He reports, “My talks with Dorothy have revealed several recurring themes of hers. She draws a distinction between a poverty freely chosen in community and a forced destitution without community. The freely chosen poverty … is, for Dorothy, a response to the Gospel message… Forced destitution, on the other hand, represents the evils of our present society which does not care for others… She consistently speaks of Peter Maurin as the founder of the Worker… Dorothy insists that people are called to a vocation and that each person’s calling is different.” (Pg. 52)
He recalls, “At first my work consisted solely of doing dishes … I was appalled by the violence, by the looks and sickness of the men, and by their drunkenness. I had suddenly been tossed into a world of brutality and evil where all meaning had collapsed.” (Pg. 57)
He observes, “I could see that these Bowery ‘bums’ could not be stereotyped. The men are young and old and middle-aged, black and white and brown, Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic, immigrant and 3rd or 4th generation American. They are mostly somber; faces with no expression… few have teeth, most are lousy. The men become oblivious to the world, and walk through life like dead men. There is no pretense of hope among them… But is it not true that among these bent bodies and bowed heads, perhaps in the corner patiently waiting to be served a bowl of soup, is Jesus himself. This, it seems, is the pivotal point of Catholic Worker life… The Worker is totally radical: it believes in an all encompassing spiritual reality here on earth.” (Pg. 68-69)
He notes, “The Worker, as a Catholic lay group, attracts religiously sensitive people who, for one reason or another, have not entered formal religious life in the institutional Church. Foremost among these is people is Dorothy herself...” (Pg. 75) Later, he adds, “Here are women and men of all ages (19 years of age to 76), working without pay, without title, dressing from donated articles, and many times doing the same tasks… In short, we all do the dishes, sweep the floors, carry packages, as well as try to develop a spiritual vision.” (Pg. 82)
He admits, “These six months have introduced me to a new world of poverty, of broken lives, to new thoughts of what my place ought to be in a world filled with the oppressed… This, I suppose, is the perennial question… which forms the very heart of the Sermon on the Mount. One can hardly escape the feeling that this is the central question our century also.” (Pg. 87-88) Later, he adds, “The 20th century, after all has been an age of unparalleled brutality, reducing whole populations to destitution and death. I wonder if the faces in this basement are not simply reflections of our century in human flesh.” (Pg. 126)
He muses, “It seems that I am finally being accepted by the community itself. Those who live and work at the house, as well as the street people, really put you through a period of testing until they realize you are determined to stick with your work and survive. Then all of a sudden you are doing things right instead of wrong.” (Pg. 103)
He reflects, “Here there is no speech, no definition of character, no easy answer to who God is and what he does. Sometimes you feel God emerging from and merging into the experience of service. Perhaps it is in service that the spirit is found. It is not, to be sure, a large and bold God, but a subtle one. Sometimes you feel a presence suffering here with you and the others. Sometimes you feel a body being broken. At other times you feel yourself surrounded by grace.” (Pg. 108-109) He wonders, “Can we be ‘religious’ and be prosperous in a world filled with the oppressed? I know I cannot change the world but what should I do at least to live out what I believe to be right and just?” (Pg.. 128)
He concludes, “I will leave tomorrow with mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is a feeling of strength that I have survived the year and I chose to leave at the right time, and on the other hand, a feeling of sadness that my stay here is ending. It has been a long journey for me, one might even say a painful journey if I had not received so much in return.” (Pg. 134)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement.
July 22, 2024
At first, I was ambivalent about this book. It was merely a set of observations about the under belly of New York in the 70's. However, as Marc moved through his time, he brought deeper questions to the forefront that makes the reader ponder: Does our economic system actually work if it leaves so many people destitute? What does an economic upturn mean if it doesn't touch everyone? For the addict, can institutionalized rehabilitation work if there is no community? What does it mean to be in a community? How can pacifism work in the face of violence? Does preparing for war make war inevitable? At the very end of the book there is an interview with Ellis from 1999. He mentions the plight of the Palestinians and how his Jewishness gives him a greater responsibility to consider his humanness and help his fellow man. Very relevant 25 years later. This is a very accessible book with existential questions.
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January 12, 2009Marc portrays his time at the CW through the lens of someone coming from privilege, who recognizes this.. He is forced to reconstruct his beliefs surrounding Service, Spirituality, and The Poor. He comes to see the faces he serves as people with pasts and painful presents.
As someone who has been very interested in the CW, I was happy to have this collection of journal entries to to read and reflect on.
As someone who has been very interested in the CW, I was happy to have this collection of journal entries to to read and reflect on.
July 29, 2009
Read for a course at Baylor University entitled: Hitler and the Holocaust, taught by Marc Ellis.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews