Encounter with Silence Retreat “Encounter with Silence” is a six-day retreat, developed by Onesimus Lacouture, S.J., and formerly given by Father John Hugo. Perhaps the most famous lover of the retreat is the Servant of God, Dorothy Day. She made the retreat more than 20 times and wrote of it often. Day said it was… continue reading
The Personalist (Emmanuel Mounier)
August 1, 2011 by
A personalist is a go-giver, not a go-getter. He tries to give what he has, and does not try to get what the other fellow has. He tries to be good by doing good to the other fellow. He is altro-centered, not self-centered. He has a social doctrine of the common good. He spreads the social doctrine of the common good through words and deeds. He speaks… continue reading
Distributism vs. Socialism: Economics As If People Mattered (Distributism)
April 1, 2006 by
G. K. Chesterton said that one should “never let a quarrel get in the way of a good argument.” He followed his own advice when he had bracing but loving arguments with his brother Cecil, which continued from the time they were children. Nowadays, it is far too easy for an argument over rival ideas… continue reading
The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins by Mark and Louise Zwick – Book Reviews
January 1, 2005 by
Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins by Mark and Louise Zwick Paulist Press, 2005; 367 pages Reviewed by Mike Wisniewski “The Catholic Worker movement provides a perspective for living out in a practical way a radical following of Jesus.” This statement by the authors, Mark and Louise Zwick, provides an accurate assessment of what those… continue reading
Easy Essay: The Wisdom of Dostoevsky: The Monastic Way is very Different (Light from the East)
August 1, 2002 by
Distorted Truth Look at the worldly and all who set themselves up above the temple of God. Has not God’s image and His truth been distorted in them? Nothing in Science They have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the highest part of man’s being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a… continue reading
Dorothy Day and St. Therese of Lisieux respond to the Despair of our Time
November 1, 2001 by
Dorothy Day’s book, Therese: A Life of Therese of Lisieux (Springfield, Illinois: Temple-gate Publishers, 1960, 1991), the fruit of much research and study on Dorothy’s part, captures the heart of the message of Saint Therese of Lisieux and reveals also the depth of Dorothy’s own spirituality. At the time when Dorothy wrote about her, she was… continue reading
G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Day on Economics:Neither Socialism nor Capitalism (Distributism)
October 1, 2001 by
The following is a talk given at the American Chesterton Society annual conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 2001. Dorothy Day and G. K. Chesterton were contemporaries. Both came into Catholicism in the 1920’s, Chesterton in 1922 at age 48 and Dorothy five years later at age 30. Both spent years of reading, studying,… continue reading
My Friendship with Dorothy Day (Helene Iswolsky)
June 1, 2000 by
Helene Iswolsky, Daughter of the last Tsarist Ambassador to France, a Russian emigré who had become a friend of Dorothy Day, gave talks at the Catholic Worker on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Soloviev. Dorothy described one of these occasions in the October 1949 CW: “The first week in September we had Helene Iswolsky at the farm at… continue reading
Dorothy Day and the LIGHT FROM THE EAST: Eastern Christianity, Fathers of the Desert, Dostoevsky
June 1, 2000 by
Dorothy Day read great literature all of her life and her reading especially included some of the Russian writers, most of all Dostoevsky. Her reading of authors from the East, which she shared with readers of The Catholic Worker, included not only fiction, but theology, monastic writings and history. She knew the monks from St…. continue reading
Virgil Michel, Benedictine Co-Worker of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin: Justice embodied in Christ-life and Liturgy
February 1, 2000 by
“What blasphemy! As if there were anything really Christian about our modern capitalism.” This was Virgil Michel, O.S.B., responding in Commonweal in 1938 to an article inCatholic World which had called Christ “the first preacher of capitalism as the most workable thesis for society.” Michel had to respond to the neocons (Michael Novak, etc.) of his… continue reading
