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Book: Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal Editor: Patrick Jordan The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, pp. 173 Excerpt from the Jacket: Dorothy Day (1897-1980) has been described as "the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism." Outside The Catholic Worker (which she edited from 1933 until her death), Day wrote for no other publication so often and over such an extended period — covering six decades — as the independent Catholic journal of opinion, Commonweal. Gathered here for the first time are Day's complete Commonweal pieces, including articles, reviews, and published letters-to-the-editor. They offer the reader not only an overview of Day's fascinating life but also a compendium of her prophetic insights, spiritual depth, and unforgettable prose. Her writing transcends her times. Excerpt from Book: Tales of Two Capitals . . .Dinner is served at Il Poverello House on Tenth Street in Washington every night at six-thirty, and swarms of the children of the neighborhood come in. There are three little girls living in the house and two big girls, both graduates of Francis Xavier University in New Orleans, now finishing up a year of graduate work at the Catholic University. These, with the two older women, who teach at the University, make up the family. But everyone in the neighborhood considers the house a sort of headquarters and comes for aid of one kind or another. The doors are open when the women get home from school and the work of hospitality goes on. Bedtime is early, because everyone gets up at quarter past five to offer the Mass at the shrine at quarter of six, where they all make the responses together, and where Father Paul Hanley Furfey gives a short homily every day. It's a good way of starting the day, and the early morning is cool and fragrant as we drive over to the shrine. The life of the group at Il Poverello house is dedicated to voluntary poverty. The principle is, " If we have less, everyone will have more." So on this very immediate practical idea, many are helped. They certainly need help, the Negroes in Washington. Down the alley in back of this house — it is a two-story, box-like structure for which the rent is $75 a month --- the tiny little houses with no running water, rent for $16 a month. Quite literally they are hovels. Places that would rent for $8 a month in New York cost twice as much here. And places are hard to find. Washington is a beautiful city; the streets are tree-shaded and on the streets the houses are mostly not bad. But down the alleys live the great mass of poor, crowded in dirty, evil-smelling, little holes. There the unemployed hang out, dull and lethargic, some vicious and dissipated, as well as the greater number who struggle against terrific odds to keep themselves human, to rise above their surroundings. Table of Contents: 1. The brother and the rooster 2. Guadalupe 3. A letter from Mexico City 4. Spring festival in Mexico 5. Bed 6. Now we are home again 7. Notes from Florida 8. East Twelfth Street 9. Review: Everybody's St. By Elizabeth von Schmidt-Pauli 10. Real revolutionists 11. Review: Catholic poets by Thomas Walsh 12. For the truly poor 13. Saint John of the Cross 14. Houses of hospitality 15. The house on Mott Street 16. Tale of two capitals 17. Letter: in the name of the staff 18. King, Ramsay and Connor 19. It was a good dinner 20. About Mary 21. Tobacco Road 22. Review: In the steps of Moses by Louis Golding 23. Review: Our Lady of the Birds by Louis J. A. Mercier 24. Peter and the woman 25. Letter: Things worth fighting for 26. The scandal of the works of mercy 27. Traveling by bus 28. Letter: Blood, sweat and tears 29. The story of Steve Hergenhan 30. Priest of the immediate 31. We plead guilty 32. Letter: from Dorothy Day 33. Pilgrimage to Mexico 34. In memory of Ed Willock 35. Southern pilgrimage 36. A.J. 37. Dorothy Day on hope 38. Reminiscence at 75 |