Summary: Meditation on the myriad forms of community--in her writing, their neighborhood, parish, the siants, guests, and in the many nationalities they encounter. Quotes from Martin Buber and notes the difficulties in all human associations.

Summary: Describes in detail the communal life at St. Benedict's farming commune in Australia and their emphasis on the primacy of the spiritual. Notes similarities and differences to the CW farms.

Summary: Deep in Winter at her daughter's farm in West Virginia they await the birth of Tamar's third child. Reflects on country life and a woman's spirituality in the midst of small children and housework. Describes her efforts at prayer. Reflects on the handicrafts Tamar practices and the worth of a country economy, a way to be co-creators with God. Notes the duty to find joy and resist despair. Long quotes from Eric Gill on a decentralized economy. Keywords: family, poverty, personalism, distributism, capitalism, socialism, communism.

Summary:

Revels in the beauty and worship of newly composed liturgical music. Gives details of her visit to the Taena community in England and eulogizes Fr. H. A. Reinhold for his labor activities. Mentions a new edition of Ammon Hennacy's autobiography, praises his activism and nonviolent stance but rejects his criticism of Scripture.

Summary: Tries to answer the question " How can we believe in a Transcendent God when the Immanent God seems so powerless within time, when demonic forces seem to be let loose?" Points to examples of transcendence in human experience: hope for happiness in intentional communities and love of neighbor, the word of God, miracles, bearing the suffering of others, martyrdom, and delight in loving God.

Summary: Reflects on a number of economic themes: the building of churches; problems with the IRS; why they are not tax-exempt; personalist/anarchist writers and projects; Ade Bethune's Community Corporation in Rhode Island. Extols all forms of mutual aid.

Summary:

Travels to North Carolina and Georgia to speak and visit friends. Recapitulates basic Catholic Worker ideas in a question and answer format. Comments on the government's war on poverty, Communism in Cuba, the role of the Church in society, Vatican II, and the gap between haves and havenots. Keywords: war, voluntary poverty, work

Summary: Diary-like description of her participation in a United Farm Workers’ picket in California, her arrest, and several days in jail. Discusses the work of Cesar Chaveza, Joan Baez, Daniel Ellsberg, and others. Concludes with a prayer to Pope John to aid Chavez and other rural workers throughout the United States.

Summary: Continues the account of her pilgrimage in Cuba with a story of getting lost on the bus system. Delivers supplies to the National Hospital. Stays with several families and visits collective farms. Admires many new homes going up, sturdy furniture, and pockets of free enterprise. Notes everyone's hunger for education. Describes Catholics who struggle with the language of the revolution but work for the common good in building up society. Sees similarities between Peter Maurin's philosophy of work and efforts to build up Cuban society.

Summary: Remembers the joy that brought about her faith and is full of gratitude for the Mass. Reveling in the hustle and bustle at Tamar's house in Vermont, she recalls "God's goodness and the sacramentality of things." On a speaking trip through Pennsylvania she mentions several strikes and the problems of unemployed miners.

Summary: Decries the city's eviction order and describes their futile search for a new house of hospitality. Tells of two weddings and four deaths during the month.

Summary: Convalescing after a mild heart attack, she meditates on the beauty of nature and the joy of singing. Says she needs to work at being less irritable. Recommends an article on death someone sent her.

Summary: Reaffirms their refusal to become a "corporation" in the face of a huge Internal Revenue Service tax penalty. Points to Peter Maurin's insistence on personal responsibility and turns to scripture and the Eucharist for solace and faith. (Also see document #523)

Summary: "Travelogue" of a speaking trip to South Dakota where she admires rural family life, the folk university movement, and a sod hut. Comments on the women's liberation movement.

Summary: Empathizes with young activists who question their pacifism in the face of so much injustice. Admires the work of activists in China, Hong Kong, Central America, and the revolution in Cuba. Contrasts them to the 20% of people who often ignore the 80% who face inhuman conditions in the world. Tells of activists in prison and those getting out. Keywords: Communism, family

Summary: Discusses freedom of conscience and obedience to Church and State in the context of Vatican Council II's condemnation of nuclear war. Lauds the "little way" of St. Therese as the foundation of world peace and a means of social change.

Summary: Addresses the issue of supporting the Cuban revolution while the Church is being persecuted there. Reaffirms solidarity with the poor and is critical of clergy who ignore the poor. Affirms opposition to violent revolution and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

Summary:

Reflects on the dignity of work, manual labor, and her childhood chores. Talks of reading the novels of Chaim Potok and decries continuing anti-Semitism.

Summary: Summarizes Peter Maurin's worldview and discusses his new social order and how his life embodied his ideas. Reveals the sources of his thought such as Proudhon, Kropotkin, Guardini and Karl Adam.

Summary: Describes her reactions to hearing that Martin Luther King was shot and killed. Memorializes his Gospel faith and teaching of non-violence.

Summary: Extols traveling by bus and recalls the many trips she and Peter Maurin made to spread the Catholic Worker philosophy. Travels through New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio visiting Catholic Worker farms, houses of hospitality, and family groups, highlighting their work, struggles, and joys.

Summary: Continues her car journey with observations about the geography of New Orleans. Tells of a miracle attributed to Martin de Porres and speaks of an interest in folk medicine. Admires efforts of families living on the land and their efforts at community.

Summary: Describes Christmas among family and friends in Vermont. Apologizes for always being behind in her mail. Reprints a letter from Ed Forand describing the tremendous inflation in the price of basic food commodities like beans. Continues the description of her trip to Ireland from the December 1973 Catholic Worker. Compares Belfast to cities like Detroit after the riots. Mentions several books about prisons. Concludes with a plea that readers remember all prisoners in their prayers.

Summary: Eulogizes Larry Heaney "the first of the Catholic Worker leaders to die." Called a "saint" by those who knew him, she describes his love of the poor, family life, voluntary poverty, and farming practices.

Summary: Remembers the work of A.J. Muste for peace and justice at his death. Supports demonstrators against the Vietnam War who disrupt a Mass, saying, however, she would not have participated. Regrets her age keeps her from working for peace in Vietnam as a nurse.

Summary: Diary-like account of a journey through Minnesota, South Dakota, Oregon, and into Canada telling of the work being done by the people she visits. Admires the life and beliefs of the Doukhobars group, a seventeenth century Russian sect dedicated to non-violence and simple Christian living.

Summary: On a sleepless stormy night, she shares her worry over their coming eviction from Christie Street. Tells the story of Lawrence Blum whom she visited in Mexico, how he found his vocation on a pilgrimage in Mexico, and his work as an example of a family man living a life of sanctity in the world. Keywords: Church

Summary: Chronicles the comings and goings of visitors and workers. Notes the crafts they practice and some of the trials that ensue. Ammon Hennacy begins another fast protesting atomic weapons. Keywords: retreat, fasting

Summary: Begins her report of a cross-country speaking and visiting trip by criticizing the Church for expensive building projects in the midst of inferior housing for the poor. Highlights some of the people and projects to help the poor. Visits Ammon Hennacy in Phoenix. Describes herself as a pilgrim.

Summary: Tales from each stop of a long journey from New York through Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Tulsa to Amarillo, Texas. Tells of many efforts at the works of mercy, learning to make rosaries, lectures, liturgies, and enduring suffering.

Summary: Meandering comments on anarchism, "worthy or unworthy" poor, usury, the Church, holy fools, the writer Solzhenitsyn, Cesar Chavez and the farmowrkers, and the Berrigan brothers.

Summary: Bucolic description of the antics of Bessie the calf. Much of the chapter describes her visit to the sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, against General Motors and their tactics. Says labor in the U.S. needs a long range program of education about cooperatives, credit unions, and a philosophy of labor. Quotes from a leaflet distributed to the men on the breadline inviting them to attend a parish mission. After a talk to a women's club in Florida she observes that the rich who deny Christ in His poor "are atheists indeed."

Summary: Lists all the people and groups she visited and spoke to in Seattle and Portland, describing their projects to help the poor and the worker.

Summary: Describes those who deny Christ in His poor as "atheists indeed." Blames well-off "professing Christians" for repelling those with no religion. Quotes from a pamphlet given to the men in the breadline about Christ being their brother and His poverty.

Summary: Describes a trip to a meeting of the Catholic Rural Life Conference and hopes the movement will revolutionize Catholic thought in America as Lenin's did in Russia. Notes the Catholic Worker's support of such means as adult education, study clubs, forming co-operatives, and propagandizing.

Summary: Recounts times she experienced strong fear--being shot at and verbally abused in the South, in prison. Urges praying for the courage to bear pain and hardship because of one's belief in pacifism and faith in God.

Summary: Tells of the work and people at numerous Catholic Worker houses and farms on a journey through New York, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Summary: Describes her visit to a Hutterite community and gives a brief history of their existence. Bases their life on Acts 2:42, which depicts a form of distribution. Other beliefs of the community are adult baptism, self-help, property in common, rejection of the state, and pacifism. Sees the Hutterites and the Kibbutizims of Israel as successful examples of farming communes as advocated by Peter Maurin.

Summary: Outlines P. Maurin's program for social action as the instituting of Houses of Hospitality, Clarification of Thought and Farming Communes, and explains where the C.W. has gone with each program. Reveals Maurin's sources of thought and the need to find lay apostolates. Traces personal sacrifices to Jesus' command in the gospels and asserts that the state cannot take over this duty.

Summary:

Resists the "January doldrums" and writes about the continuing struggle of California farm workers. Tells of her visit to Sicily and England, giving details of the plane flights and her reasons for preferring planes over buses and ships. Praises the work of mercy of a disabled man. Keyword: nonviolence

Summary: Brief commentary on a massive nonviolent demonstration against the Vietnam War led by Martin Luther King and Benjamin Spock.

Summary: Recommends two books on pacifism, visits her daughter in Vermont and then friends in Montreal. Attends the funeral of Jane Marra who started the Catholic Worker in Boston.

Summary: Reflections on some Catholic Workers being jailed for civil disobedience, visiting the prisoner, and the folly of the cross. Recalls the death of the Rosenbergs and notes new evidence that is surfacing. Includes notes from a visit to her daughter and grandchildren in Vermont. Says the arms race is insanity. Keywords: anarchy, prison, civil rights

Summary: Recalls visiting the Oratory in Birmingham, England and the life of St. Philip Neri who founded the Oratory in Rome. Stories about money--ill spent tax dollars to alleviate the heavy traffic in their neighborhood, the windfall they received from selling their Staten Island property, capital gains taxes, and fees to lawyers and real estate agents. Explains how they used the windfall to acquire a new farm at Tivoli.

Summary: Reflects on voluntary poverty against the backdrop of stories of theft and being taken advantage of by guests. Asks if we are ready to be robbed of our goods, relinquish what we have, and share with the poor. "Do we really welcome poverty as liberating?"

Summary:

Departs for Cuba to see for herself life under Castro's communism, especially farming communes, the life of the family, and religious freedom. Humorously comments on the 40 rules in fine print on her steamship ticket. Deflects critics who say she won't be truthful and see much. Reaffirms her pacifism even though Cuba "is an armed camp." " I will try to make the Cuban story come alive."

Summary: On a hot and humid August day she describes their neighborhood and the many visitors coming and going. Longs for the country and the beach. Mentions several Workers who participated in freedom rides in the South as part of the civil rights movement. Mentions several conferences on third-world development noting that "some kind of ownership which gives security" is needed in the U.S. as well as elsewhere.

Summary: Describes a speaking trip to Vancouver, Oregon, and San Francisco. Admires the varied apostolic works of the people she visits as examples of service to the common good.

Summary:

Depicts the plight of black sharecroppers in Mississippi--efforts to drive them off the land, economic injustice, intimidation, and lack of ownership. Tells of efforts to speak out and organize. Before arriving in the deep south she visits Catholic Workers in Memphis. Keywords: segregation

Summary: Reminds readers that love is an exchange of gifts and that helping the poor reveals God and leads to a better social order. Speaks of the continuing struggle to remove segregation.

Summary: Paints a picture of Catholic Worker community life--the house, work, prayer, needs, and volunteers. Lists the summer programs for Peter Maurin Farm and Maryfarm. Describes her Holy Week observance.

Summary: Asserts that action for social and racial justice must flow from reverence for those in need and the precept of love. Says ". If we are afraid, we must pray not to be afraid, to be fools for Christ."

Summary: Describes the work, inconvenience, and grateful anticipation of their move to a new house on Christie Street. Includes an account of an all-night pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

Summary: Shares her conversations with old friends in California on charity, social justice, and Jubilee. Visits priests and bishops in California and Ammon Hennacy in Phoenix. Keywords: Jew, prayer

Summary: Finds it hard to write about her sister Della who died--"my closest friend and confidante." Recalls growing up in Chicago together and their reading, conversations, and walks. Notes their differences over birth control--Della had worked for Margaret Sanger who Dorothy once interviewed.

Summary: Comments on numerous books, recollections of childhood, and mentions various friends and visitors.

Summary: Discusses several books she is reading including Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter and Chekhov’s The Island. Recalls Undset’s escape from Nazi-occupied Norway to the United States. Comments on recent events regarding prisoners at home and in Central America. Concludes with a description of the Little Brothers and Charles de Foucauld of whom Peter Maurin said "This is the spirituality for our day."

Summary: Reminisces about her involvement with the non-violent revolution of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers--boycotts, pickets, jailings, life with the workers, and worship.

Summary: Reminds herself that "the work of the spirit" is as important as other involvements. Visits her daughter Tamar's place in Vermont and admires the handicrafts being taught and practiced, especially working with wool.

Summary: Ponders the relationship between freedom and authority, faith and obedience. Uses her conversion and starting of the Catholic Worker as examples of conscience and the great freedom of the laity. Cites various authorities and the example of Pope John XXIII on freedom and obedience. Ultimately, links obedience to love and her faith. Repeats the need to "search the Scriptures" and to achieve a "second conversion" to the faith.

Summary: Talks of means and ends by juxtaposing news of the end of the Vietnam war with an obituary for Bill Gauchat. A close follower of Peter Maurin, Bill Gauchat and his family exemplified a life built around all the works of mercy.

Summary: Says the Catholic Worker is a school where volunteers can learn their vocation and to overcome fear. Notes prisoners of conscience, being jailed eleven times, visiting prisoners, and the witness of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Keywords: prison

Summary: Writes of beauty in nature and the strange beauty of suffering, their difficulties with city planners, Peter Maurin and Ralph Borsodi on economics, and the importance of "abiding joy" and the "primacy of the spiritual" in the face of national crisis.

Summary: Focuses on fasting, how hard it is for her, and the call to be holy, to become whole persons--spiritually, mentally, and physically. Lists the many speaking s tops and visits with friends and workers in a trip through the Midwest. Keyword: saints

Summary: Describes a pilgrimage to England and Ireland to visit the Simon Communities on their ten-year anniversary of serving the destitute. Discusses the Student Christian Movement in England. Attends a fundraiser, which leaves her uncomfortable with the wealth of the celebration’s sponsors. Visits the shelter housed in the Crypt of the Cathedral in Liverpool.

Summary: Rumination on the recent deaths of three loved ones: Jenny Moore, W.H. Auden and Franklin Spier, Day’s brother-in-law. How each touched and influenced her emotional and intellectual development. In thinking about death, also ponders Heaven and the importance of the Transfiguration.

Summary: Diary-like paragraphs for the month--peace meetings, walks, reading, a visit to her daughter and grandchildren in Vermont, planting, and prayers.

Summary: Aims to write about "the earthly spirituality that Christians need to recover." She sees it exemplified during a stay with Cesar Chavez at the farmworkers education center in La Paz, California. Speaks of the dangers he faces and his zeal, fasting, and recognition of voluntary poverty as spiritual weapons. Notes that "much is wild, prophetic and holy about our [CW] work--it is that which attracts the young who come to help us. But the heart hungers for that new social order wherein justice dwelleth."

Summary: Sketchy account of her around-the-world trip and two obituaries of lon-time Catholic Workers, "Smokey Joe" Motyka and Peggy Baird.

Summary: After attending Ammon Hennacy's funeral in Utah she travels to Florida and Georgia visiting friends, the Koinonia community, and a trappist monastery. Prays for courage in the face of vast poverty and violence. Encouraged by Catholic Pentecostal movement and return to prayer.

Summary: Praises the Catholic Arts Quartrly edited by Ade Bethune and says it portrays Peter Maurin's synthesis of Cult, Culture, and Cultivation. Urges readers to buy her books.

Summary: Graphic account of Mary Frecons work in a black section of Harrisburg, PA,--the spirited church services, the smell of rats, the care for the dying sick. Emphasizes the unity of body and soul and the need for "blind faith" in such conditions. "How little it all is, as obscure as the life of the Blessed Mother, and as 'little' as the life and sufferings of the Little Flower!"

Summary: Vivid description of the pulsing sounds of worship and smells of death in a black neighborhood in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Admires the works of mercy at Mary Frecon's house of hospitality, and example of "the little way." Recalls the wonderful time children had at their labor day retreat and laments their expenses on the farm and for the breadline in the city.

Summary: Still awaiting Tamar's baby, she mentions neighborly visits and reflects on her family history, and criticizes poorly written books about Mary and the saints. Writes of "feasting and fasting" as Lent begins, enumerating the many mentions of food in the Bible and quoting Dostoevsky's character Father Zossima on the importance of fasting.

Summary: Briefly summarizes recent Friday night talks at the Catholic Worker on Ireland, worker priests, use of force, and conscientious objection to conscription. Lists many visitors, tells of pleasant days at Maryfarm, and describes conditions in city-run homeless shelters.

Summary: Writing from her daughter's farm in West Viriginia, comments on the cold and kid's play. Reports on her travels through the Southwest, Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Minnesota extolling the need for supporting the family and a return to the land. Distinguishes types of anarchism and the need for study. Wants more priests to have a vision of a new social order.

Summary: Describes a happy Christmas at the Newburgh farm--snow, good food, worship, but uneven heat. Peter Maurin can't stay warm, receives the affectionate care of children, and needs a doctor. Urges all to keep the ideal of going "villageward."

Summary: Reflecting on the themes cover in the book, she acknowledges all that has been accomplished and distinguishes the role of the State and personal responsibility. Enumerates the many strikes they supported. Calls for a greater use of prayer and the desire to be saints. Speaks about what individual workers are doing in New York and is encouraged by houses around the country. Concludes by recalling Peter Maurin's fundamental ideas--voluntary poverty and the works of mercy. Prays that they continue on "the downward path which leads to salvation."

Summary: Contrasts the violence against strikers in Chicago at the Republic Steel Mills, egged on by the media, with the peaceful methods of dealing with strikers by law enforcement officials in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Comments on the joyful antics of the many children at the farm in the Summer, and enumerates their many unmet needs at the farm. Describes the noisy rebuilding going on at Mott Street. On the road, she reports on housing efforts in Chicago and a beautiful liturgy in St. Louis, explaining why they say Compline in New York.

Summary: Exuberant description of a month spent at a Grail folk school where work, crafts, prayer, meditation, liturgies, lectures, and fasting intermingled. Includes her notes of presentations on the Mass, liturgical singing, and the psalms.

Summary: An open letter to Peter Maurin telling him of the latest developments during one of his prolonged absences from the New York area. There were some tragedies--her father and Mr. Breen died and Charlie the bricklayer collapsed. Many members of the team fell ill. Yet there was also joy to share--progress continued on the Easton farm and interest in The Catholic Worker movement grew both at home and abroad. Most importantly, the various workers’ children brought amusement and joy into everyone’s lives.

Summary: Collection of little stories: visitors, helping Tamar with homework, praying to St. Joseph for money, reading Pelle the Conqueror, and attending a CIO convention. Affirms her "faith in the tremendous spiritual capacities of man."

Summary: Another appeal has gone out entrusting their needs to St. Joseph. Notes how busy everyone is at the office, on the breadline, and on the farm. (Someone had noted the hordes of young men around the CW and wondered what they do.) Mentions that public works such as bridge building can be considered works of mercy.

Summary: Describes parish life in a South Side Chicago slum, the beautiful liturgy in a St. Louis, Missouri, convent. Speaks to workers, white and colored, and lauds the teaching and hospital work of a 75 year old priest, Fr. John Lyons.

Summary: A colorful account of a winter morning at the Easton farm--warm fires and cold bedrooms, making butter, the frolics of Bessie the three month old calf. Speaks of guest rooms, hospitality, starting a Catholic lending library, and reading about cooperatives.

Summary: Expresses her joy at the presence of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers union at a rally and fiesta in New York in support of the lettuce boycott. Applauds their non-violent approach and hopes it will be a leaven in the union movement.

Summary: Describes a visit to Martin de Porres house of hospitality in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Reflects on the seeming futility of the work and how "it is undoubtedly a manifestation of love, of God's love."

Summary: Reflects on how hard it is to leave the cares of the Catholic Worker as she begins a pilgrimage to other CW groups. Extols efforts at rural self-sufficiency (e.g. wool making) in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and visits friends in Minneapolis and Chicago.

Summary: Expresses a joyful heart in the midst of war preparations. Visits friends, Bishops, and West Coast Houses of Hospitality in Seattle and Los Angelus.

Summary: Defends "the little way" and individual acts of service and martyrdom against critics who charge the CW with defeatism.

Summary: Celebrates the 25th anniversary of the C.W. Perceives freedom as the greatest gift to man from God, and advocates a four hour work day, child labor, private property as personal property and manual labor. Personalism works from the bottom up and reminds her readers that Jesus told people, not states, to perform works of mercy.