The Easy Essays of Peter Maurin Define the Catholic Worker Movement

by centeradmin
0 comment

By Peter Maurin, Co-Founder of the Movement

The Law of Holiness

“No man can serve two masters,

God and Mammon.”

“Be perfect

as your Heavenly Father

is perfect.”

“If you want

to be perfect

sell all you have,

give it to the poor

and follow Me.

New Testament

“These are hard words,”

says Robert Louis Stevenson,

“but the hard words

of a book

were the only reason

why the book was written.”

In his encyclical

on St. Francis de Sales

the Holy Father says:

We cannot accept the belief

that this command of Christ

concerns only

a select and privileged group,

and that all others

may consider themselves pleasing to Him

if they have attained

a lesser degree

of holiness.

Quite the contrary is true,

as appears from the generality

of His words.

The law of holiness

embraces all men

and admitsof no exception.”

—–

Counsels of the Gospel

Someone said

that The Catholic Worker

is taking monasticism

out of the monasteries.

The Counsels of the Gospel

are for everybody,

not only for monks.

Franciscans and Jesuits

are not monks.

Franciscans are Friars,

and the world is their monastery.

Jesuits are the storm troops

of the Catholic Church,

and ready to be sent

where the Holy Father

wishes to send them.

The Counsels of the Gospel

are for everybody,

and if everybody

tried to live up to it

we would bring order

out of chaos,

and Chesterton would not

have said

that the Christian ideal

has been left untried

—–

Tradition or Catholic Action

The central act of devotional life

in the Catholic Church

if the Holy Sacrifice of the

Mass.

The Sacrifice of the Mass

is the unbloody repetition

of the Sacrifice of the Cross.

On the Cross of Calvary

Christ gave His life to redeem

the world.

The life of Christ was a life of

sacrifice.

We cannot imitate the Sacrifice

of Christ on Calvary

by trying to get all we can.

We can only imitate the

Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary

by trying to give all we can.

—–

Laborare et Orare

The motto of St. Benedict was

Laborare et Orare, Labor and

Prayer..

Labor and prayer ought to be

combined;

labor ought to be a prayer.

The liturgy of the Church

is the prayer of the Church.

People ought to pray with the

Church

and to work with the Church.

The religious life of the people

and the economic life of the

people

ought to be one.

—–

They and We

People say:

“They don’t do this,

they don’t do that,

they ought to do this,

they ought to do that.”

Always “They”

and never “I.”

People should say:

“They are crazy

for doing this

and not doing that

but I don’t need

to be crazy

the way they are crazy.”

The Communitarian Revolution

is basically

a personal revolution.

It starts with I,

not with They.

One I plus one I

makes two I’s

and two I’s make We.

We is a community

while “they” is a crowd.

—–

The Irish Monks and the Reconstruction of the Social Order

The Holy Father and the

Bishops ask us

to reconstruct the social order.

The social order was once

constructed

through dynamic Catholic

Action.

When the barbarians invaded

the decaying Roman Empire

Irish missionaries went all over

Europe

and laid the foundations of

medieval Europe.

Through the establishment of

cultural centers,

that is to say, Round-Table

Discussions,

they brought thought to the

people.

Through free guest houses

that is to say, Houses of

Hospitality,

they popularized the divine

virtue of charity.

Through farming communes

that is to say, Agronomic

Universities,

they emphasized voluntary

poverty.

It was on the basis of personal

charity

and voluntary poverty

that Irish missionaries

laid the foundations

of the social order.

—–

Out of the Temple

Christ drove the money

changers

out of the Temple.

But today nobody dares

to drive the money lenders

out of the Temple.

And nobody dares

to drive the money lenders

out of the Temple

because the money lenders

have taken a mortgage

on the Temple.

When church builders build

churches

with money borrowed from

money lenders

they increase the prestige

of the money lenders.

But increasing the prestige

of the money lenders

does not increase the prestige

of the Church.

Which makes Archbishop

McNicholas say:

“We have been guilty

of encouraging tyranny

in the financial world

until it has become

a veritable octopus

strangling the life

of our people.”

—–

Better and Better Off

The world would be better off

if people tried to become better.

And people would become

better

if they stopped trying to become

better off.

For when everybody tries to

become better off

nobody is better off.

But when everybody tries to

become better,

everybody is better off.

Everybody would be rich

if nobody tried to become richer.

And nobody would be poor

If everybody tried to be the

poorest.

And everybody would be what

he ought to be

if everybody tried to be

what he wants the other fellow

to be.

Christianity has nothing to do with either modern capitalism

or modern Communism

for Christianity has

a capitalism of its own.

Modern capitalism

is based on property without

responsibility,

while Christian capitalism

is based on property with

responsibility.

Modern Communism

is based on poverty through

force

while Christian communism

is based on poverty through

choice.

For a Christian,

voluntary poverty is the ideal

as exemplified by St. Francis of

Assisi.

while private property

is not an absolute right, but a

gift

which as such can not be

wasted,

but must be administered

for the benefit of God’s

children.

—–

Barbarians and Civilized

We call barbarians

people living

on the other side of the border.

We call civilized

people living

on this side of the border.

We civilized,

living on this side of the border,

are not ashamed

to arm ourselves to the teeth

so as to protect ourselves

against the barbarians

living on the other side.

And when the barbarians

born on the other side of the

border

invade us,

we do not hesitate

to kill them

before we have tried

to civilize them.

So we civilized

exterminate barbarians

without civilizing them.

And we persist

in calling ourselves civilized.

—–

1600—Banker

Before John Calvin

people were not allowed

to lend money at interest.

John Calvin decided

to legalize

money lending at interest

in spite of the teachings

of the Prophets of Israel

and the Fathers of the Church.

Protestant countries

tried to keep up

with John Calvin

and money-lending at interest

became the general practice.

And money ceased to be

a means of exchange

and began to be

a means to make money.

So people lent money on time

and started to think of time

in terms of money

and said to each other,

“Time is money.”

—–

A Modern Plague

Catholic laymen and women

commit the great modern error

of separating the spiritual

from the material.

This great modern error,

known under the name of

secularism,

is called a “modern plague”

by Pope Pius XI.

You may also like

Leave a Comment