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.