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How Necessary It Is To Cultivate A Spirit Of Joy. It Is A Psychological Truth That The Physical Acts Of Reverence And Devotion Make One Feel Devout. The Courteous Gesture Increases One's Respect For Others. To Act Lovingly Is To Begin To Feel Loving, And Certainly To Act Joyfully Brings Joy To Others Which In Turn Makes One Feel Joyful. I Believe We Are Called To The Duty Of Delight.

-Dorothy Day

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How Necessary It Is

Dorothy Day

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How Necessary It Is To Cultivate A Spirit Of Joy. It Is A Psychological Truth That The Physical Acts Of Reverence And Devotion Make One Feel Devout. The Courteous Gesture Increases One's Respect For Others. To Act Lovingly Is To Begin To Feel Loving, And Certainly To Act Joyfully Brings Joy To Others Which In Turn Makes One Feel Joyful. I Believe We Are Called To The Duty Of Delight.

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There's Enough Hate In The World. I Command You To Love. And You Have To Make An Effort.

The Final Word Is Love.

As A Child, I Came Across The Bible, But Nobody In My Family Had Anything To Do With Religion. I Just Felt A Profound Truth There That Appealed To Me.

How Much Did I Hear Of Religion As A Child? Very Little, And Yet My Heart Leaped When I Heard The Name Of God. I Do Believe Every Soul Has A Tendency Toward God.

I Really Only Love God As Much As I Love The Person I Love The Least.

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It Is Best To Disregard Their Talk And Judge Only Their Actions.

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Our Rule Is The Works Of Mercy... It Is The Way Of Sacrifice, Worship, A Sense Of Reverence.

My Whole Life So Far, My Whole Experience Has Been That Our Failure Has Been Not To Love Enough. This Conviction Brought Me To A Rejection Of The Radical Movement After My Early Membership In The Socialist Party, The Industrial Workers Of The World, And The Communist Affiliates I Worked With.

If You Have Two Coats, One Of Them Belongs To The Poor.

Charity Is Only As Warm As Those Who Administer It.

First Of All, Let It Be Remembered That I Speak As An Ex-communist And One Who Has Not Testified Before Congressional Committees, Nor Written Works On The Communist Conspiracy.

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Common Sense In Religion Is Rare, And We Are Too Often Trying To Be Heroic Instead Of Just Ordinarily Good And Kind.

Don't Worry About Being Effective. Just Concentrate On Being Faithful To The Truth.

Maybe I Was Praying For Him Then, In My Own Way. Does God Have A Set Way Of Prayer, A Way That He Expects Each Of Us To Follow? I Doubt It. I Believe Some People-- Lots Of People-- Pray Through The Witness Of Their Lives, Through The Work They Do, The Friendships They Have, The Love They Offer People And Receive From People. Since When Are Words The Only Acceptable Form Of Prayer?

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If You Feed The Poor, You're A Saint. If You Ask Why They're Poor, You're A Communist.

With Prayer, One Can Go On Cheerfully And Even Happily. Without Prayer, How Grim A Journey!

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These Powerless People At The Bottom Are The Ones With Whom We Must Begin. They Must Have The Insight And The Knowledge To Work Together And Recognise That They Are On The Right Track.

Working Together

So Many Sins Against The Poor Cry Out To High Heaven! One Of The Most Deadly Sins Is To Deprive The Laborer Of His Hire. There Is Another: To Instill In Him Paltry Desires So Compulsive That He Is Willing To Sell His Liberty And His Honor To Satisfy Them. We Are All Guilty Of Concupiscence, But Newspapers, Radios, Television, And Battalions Of Advertising Men (woe To That Generation!) Deliberately Stimulate Our Desires, The Satisfaction Of Which So Often Means The Degradation Of The Family.

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We Plant Seeds That Will Flower As Results In Our Lives, So Best To Remove The Weeds Of Anger, Avarice, Envy And Doubt, That Peace And Abundance May Manifest For All.

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Everything A Baptized Person Does Each Day Should Be Directly Or Indirectly Related To The Corporal And Spiritual Works Of Mercy.

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God Forbid We Should Have Great Institutions. The Thing Is To Have Many Small Centres. The Ideal Is Community.

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Working Together

To Feed The Hungry, Clothe The Naked And Shelter The Harborless Without Also Trying To Change The Social Order So That People Can Feed, Clothe And Shelter Themselves Is Just To Apply Palliatives. It Is To Show A Lack Of Faith In One’s Fellows, Their Responsibilitie S As Children Of God, Heirs Of Heaven.

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Advent Is A Time Of Waiting, Of Expectation, Of Silence. Waiting For Our Lord To Be Born. A Pregnant Woman Is So Happy, So Content. She Lives In Such A Garment Of Silence, And It Is As Though She Were Listening To Hear The Stir Of Life Within Her. One Always Hears That Stirring Compared To The Rustling Of A Bird In The Hand. But The Intentness Which Which One Awaits Such Stirring Is Like Nothing So Much As A Blanket Of Silence.

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Too Much Praise Makes You Feel You Must Be Doing Something Terribly Wrong.

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We Should Live In Such A Way That Our Lives Wouldn't Make Much Sense If The Gospel Were Not True.

Recording Happiness Made It Last Longer, We Felt, And Recording Sorrow Dramatized It And Took Away Its Bitterness; And Often We Settled Some Problem Which Beset Us Even While We Wrote About It.

Just As The Birds Of The Air Are Fed, We'll Continue To Be Fed.

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You Will Know Your Vocation By The Joy That It Brings You. You Will Know. You Will Know When It's Right.

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How Necessary It Is To Cultivate A Spirit Of Joy. It Is A Psychological Truth That The Physical Acts Of Reverence And Devotion Make One Feel Devout. The Courteous Gesture Increases One's Respect For Others. To Act Lovingly Is To Begin To Feel Loving, And Certainly To Act Joyfully Brings Joy To Others Which In Turn Makes One Feel Joyful. I Believe We Are Called To The Duty Of Delight.

It Is Only Through Religion That Communism Can Be Achieved, And Has Been Achieved Over And Over.

We're Under Obligation To Love - That's The Commandment.

The Work Is More Important Than The Talking And The Writing About The Work.

You Can't Write About Things Without Doing Them. You Just Have To Live That Same Way.

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Our Relationship

Words Are As Strong And Powerful As Bombs, As Napalm.

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I Have Long Since Come To Believe That People Never Mean Half Of What They Say, And That It Is Best To Disregard Their Talk And Judge Only Their Actions.

Most Of Our Life Is Unimportant, Filled With Trivial Things From Morning Till Night. But When It Is Transformed By Love It Is Of Interest Even To The Angels.

The Gospel Takes Away Our Right Forever, To Discriminate Between The Deserving And The Undeserving Poor.

No One Has A Right To Sit Down And Feel Hopeless. There's Too Much Work To Do.

When You Love People, You See All The Good In Them, All The Christ In Them. God Sees Christ, His Son, In Us And Loves Us. And So We Should See Christ In Others, And Nothing Else, And Love Them. There Can Never Be Enough Of It. There Can Never Be Enough Thinking About It.

Our Problems Stem From Our Acceptance Of This Filthy, Rotten System.

When You Love People, You See All The Good In Them, All The Christ In Them.

It's Godlike To Love Man - Even In His Sin - Merely Because He's Man.

Those Who Cannot See Christ In The Poor Are Atheists Indeed.

An Individual Can March For Peace Or Vote For Peace And Can Have, Perhaps, Some Small Influence On Global Concerns. But The Same Individual Is A Giant In The Eyes Of A Child At Home. If Peace Is To Be Built, It Must Start With The Individual. It Is Built Brick By Brick.

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It Is Not Easy Always To Be Joyful, To Keep In Mind The Duty Of Delight.

I Cannot Worry Much About Your Sins And Miseries When I Have So Many Of My Own. I Can Only Love You All, Poor Fellow Travellers, Fellow Sufferers. I Do Not Want To Add One Least Straw To The Burden You Already Carry.

Where Are The Heroes And The Saints, Who Keep A Clear Vision Of Man's Greatest Gift, His Freedom, To Oppose Not Only The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, But Also The Dictatorship Of The Benevolent State, Which Takes Possession Of The Family, And Of The Indigent, And Claims Our Young For War?

I Can Write No Other Than This: Unless We Use The Weapons Of The Spirit, Denying Ourselves And Taking Up Our Cross And Following Jesus, Dying With Him And Rising With Him, Men Will Go On Fighting, And Often From The Highest Motives, Believing That They Are Fighting Defensive Wars For Justice And In Self-defense Against Present Or Future Aggression.

The Best Thing To Do With The Best Things In Life Is To Give Them Up.

No Matter How Corrupt The Church May Become, It Carries Within It The Seeds Of Its Own Regeneration.

Together With The Works Of Mercy, Feeding, Sheltering, And Clothing Our Brothers, We Must Indoctrinate.

If You Are Going To Try And Change Things, You Had Better Have Your Wits About You.

Don't Call Me A Saint; I Don't Want To Be Dismissed So Easily.

Our Faith Is Stronger Than Death, Our Philosophy Is Firmer Than Flesh, And The Spread Of The Kingdom Of God Upon The Earth Is More Sublime And More Compelling.

Some Can Go Further Than Others.

It Is We Ourselves That We Have To Think About, No One Else. That Is The Way The Saints Worked. They Paid Attention To What They Were Doing, And If Others Were Attracted To Them By Their Enterprise, Why, Well And Good. But They Looked To Themselves First Of All.

"how Can You See Christ In People?" And We Only Say: It Is An Act Of Faith, Constantly Repeated. It Is An Act Of Love, Resulting From An Act Of Faith. It Is An Act Of Hope, That We Can Awaken These Same Acts In Their Hearts, Too, With The Help Of God.

Love And Ever More Love Is The Only Solution To Every Problem That Comes Up.

The Older I Get, The More I Meet People, The More Convinced I Am That We Must Only Work On Ourselves, To Grow In Grace. The Only Thing We Can Do About People Is To Love Them.

Christ Is God Or He Is The World's Greatest Liar And Imposter.

We Certainly Can Try To Grow In Love, And It Is Good Practice, This Giving What We've Got, Whether It Is A Cup Of Coffee Or Money To Pay The Grocery Bill.

The Works Of Mercy Are The Opposite Of The Works Of War, Feeding The Hungry, Sheltering The Homeless, Nursing The Sick, Visiting The Prisoner. But We Are Destroying Crops, Setting Fire To Entire Villages And To The People In Them. We Are Not Performing The Works Of Mercy But The Works Of War.

Men Are Beginning To Realize That They Are Not Individuals But Persons In Society, That Man Alone Is Weak And Adrift, That He Must Seek Strength In Common Action.

Idealism In The Young, I Guess I'm Saying, Is Curiosity As Well As Goodness Trying To Express Itself.

Love And Ever More Love Is The Only Solution To Every Problem That Comes Up. If We Love Each Other Enough, We Will Bear With Each Other's Faults And Burdens. If We Love Enough, We Are Going To Light That Fire In The Hearts Of Others. And It Is Love That Will Burn Out The Sins And Hatreds That Sadden Us. It Is Love That Will Make Us Want To Do Great Things For Each Other. No Sacrifice And No Suffering Will Then Seem Too Much.

We Want No Revolution; We Want The Brotherhood Of Men. We Want Men To Love One Another. We Want All Men To Have What Is Sufficient For Their Needs. And Now - Strange Thought - The Devil Has So Maneuvered That The People Turn From Him Because Those Who Profess Him Are Clothed In Soft Raiment And Sit At Well-spread Tables And Deny The Poor.

Brotherhood Of Man

Writing Is Hard Work. But If You Want To Become A Writer You Will Become One. Nothing Will Stop You.

I Have Been Disillusioned, However, This Long, Long Time In The Means Used By Any But The Saints To Live In This World God Has Made For Us.

We Are All One Body, We Are All One.

The Communists In Cuba Didn't Assist Castro In His Revolution. They Weren't On The Side Of The Students. They Didn't Do Anything To Help In The Invasion Or The Long-continuing Struggle From The Oriente Province Down.

Two Years Ago, I Was Saying As I Planted Seeds In The Garden, "i Must Believe In These Seeds, That They Fall Into The Earth And Grow Into Flowers And Radishes And Beans." It Is A Miracle To Me Because I Do Not Understand It. The Very Fact That They Use Glib Technical Phrases Does Not Make It Any Less A Miracle, And A Miracle We All Accept. Then Why Not Accept God's Miracles?

When It Comes Down To It, Even On The Natural Plane, It Is Much Happier And More Enlivening To Love Than To Be Loved.

Of All The Charges Made Against The Communists These Days Of Congressional Investigations, The Charge Of Loose Morals Is Seldom Heard, So Very Loose Have Become Those Of "christian" People.

I Think One Of The Things We Must Constantly Keep In Mind Is, 'if Anybody Hits You On One Cheek, Turn The Other.'

Whatever I Had Read As A Child About The Saints Had Thrilled Me. I Could See The Nobility Of Giving One's Life For The Sick, The Maimed, The Leper. But There Was Another Question In My Mind. Why Was So Much Done In Remedying The Evil Instead Of Avoiding It In The First Place? Where Were The Saints To Try To Change The Social Order, Not Just To Minister To The Slaves, But To Do Away With Slavery?

If I Did Not Believe, If I Did Not Make What Is Called An Act Of Faith (and Each Act Of Faith Increases Our Faith, And Our Capacity For Faith), If I Did Not Have Faith That The Works Of Mercy Do Lighten The Sum Total Of Suffering In The World, So That Those Who Are Suffering On Both Sides Of This Ghastly Struggle Somehow Mysteriously Find Their Pain Lifted And Some Balm Of Consolation Poured On Their Wounds, If I Did Not Believe These Things, The Problem Of Evil Would Indeed Be Overwhelming.

We Believe In Loving Our Brothers Regardless Of Race, Color Or Creed And We Believe In Showing This Love By Working For Better Conditions Immediately And The Ultimate Owning By The Workers Of Their Means Of Production.

We Have All Known The Long Loneliness, And We Have Found That The Answer Is Community.

Community Living

We Also Know That Religion, As The Marxists Have Always Insisted, Has, Too Often, Like An Opiate, Tended To Put People To Sleep To The Reality And The Need For The Present Struggle For Peace And Justice.

The Saying Of Vatican Ii Is Above All, 'conscience Is Supreme.'

It Is Penance To Work, To Give Oneself To Others, To Endure The Pinpricks Of Community Living.

Community Living

The Only Way To Live In Any True Security Is To Live So Close To The Bottom That When You Fall You Do Not Have Far To Drop, You Do Not Have Much To Lose.

Knitting Is Very Conducive To Thought. It Is Nice To Knit A While, Put Down The Needles, Write A While, Then Take Up The Sock Again.

I Think Anarchy Is Natural To The Catholic. The Church Is Pretty Anarchistic, You Know. Who Pays Attention To The Pope Or The Cardinals?

What We Would Like To Do Is Change The World - Make It A Little Simpler For People To Feed, Clothe, And Shelter Themselves As God Intended For Them To Do.

When People Are Standing Up For Our Present Rotten System, They Are Being Worse Than Communists, It Seems To Me.

And I Was To Find Out Then, As I Found Out So Many Times, Over And Over Again, That Women Especially Are Social Beings, Who Are Not Content With Just Husband And Family, But Must Have A Community, A Group, An Exchange With Others. A Child Is Not Enough. A Husband And Children, No Matter How Busy One May Be Kept By Them, Are Not Enough. Young And Old, Even In The Busiest Years Of Our Lives, We Women Especially Are Victims Of The Long Loneliness.

The Idea That When The Health Of One Member Suffers, The Health Of The Whole Body Is Lowered Is A Teaching Of St Paul Which Is Timeless.

We're Living In An Age Of Genocide. ...and We Do Believe That There Is Not Only The Genocide Of War, And The Genocide That Took Place With The Extermination Of The Jews, But The Whole Program....of Birth Control And Abortion Is Another Form Of Genocide.... [t]hey Claim The Poor Are Bringing Forth Tremendous Numbers Of Children And So The Solution Is To Kill Them Off.

To Love With Understanding And Without Understanding. To Love Blindly, And To Folly. To See Only What Is Loveable. To Think Only Of These Things. To See The Best In Everyone Around, Their Virtues Rather Than Their Faults. To See Christ In Them!

The Only Answer In This Life, To The Loneliness We Are All Bound To Feel, Is Community.

You See I'm Such A Fool That I'm Never Afraid Of Appearing Foolish.

It Is Easier To Have Faith That God Will Support Each House Of Hospitality And Farming Commune And Supply Our Needs In The Way Of Food And Money To Pay Bills, Than It Is To Keep A Strong, Hearty, Living Faith In Each Individual Around Us - To See Christ In Him.

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Robert A. Heinlein

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