Year at the Catholic Worker: A Spiritual Journey Among the Poor

Sixty-six years ago the Catholic Worker movement began with the opening of a shared aprtment as a house of hospitality and the selling of the Catholic Worker newspaper for a penny a copy in Union Square. It began amidst the Great Depression with millions out of work and the foundation of American capitalism crumbling. Most of all, however, the Catholic Worker began with the meeting of two persons: Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Their meeting was the effective beginning of the Catholic Worker movement and remains to this day the source of its inspiration.

In this diary Marc H. Ellis recounts his spiritual journey among the poor in New York City in the early 1970s. What he witnessed at the Catholic Worker continues to increase in our world today: homelessness, destitution, and other forms of poverty. Yet, the spiritual life he experienced is even more real today as well: commitment, hope, and faith among the poor.