Dorothy Day
Marquette University Archives
Within The Catholic Worker, there has
Always been emphasis placed on the woks of
mercy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,
sheltering the harborless, that it has seemed to
many of our intellectuals a top-heavy performance.
There was early criticism that we were taking on
”rotten lumber that would sink the ship. “Derelict”
was the term used most often.
As though Jesus did not come to live with
the lost, to save the lost, to show
them the way. His love was always shown most
tenderly to the poor, the derelict, the prodigal son,
so that he would leave the ninety-nine just ones to
go after the one.
From Stanley Vishnewski, Meditations:
Dorothy Day, Templegate 1997.
Unworthy Poor
By Dorothy Day
God is on the side of even the unworthy poor,
as we know from the story Jesus told of His
Father and the prodigal son. Charles Péguy,
in God Speaks, has explained it perfectly. Readers
may object that the prodigal son returned
to his father’s house. But, who knows, he might
have gone out and squandered money on the
next Saturday night; he might have refused to
help with the farm work, and asked to be sent
to finish his education instead, thereby further
incurring his brother’s righteous wrath, and
the war between the worker and the intellectual,
or the conservative and the radical, would be on.
Jesus has another answer to that one: to forgive
one’s brother seventy times seven. There are
always answers, although they are not always
calculated to soothe.
From Stanley Vishnewski, Meditations:
Dorothy Day, Templegate 1997.
