Working for the Common Good

I have recently endeavored to read many writings of Dorothy Day. I was particularly challenged by the following passage taken from one of her journals written in December of 1948 in a work titled On Pilgrimage.

The love of humanity of Our Lord is the love of our brother. I have meditated on this fact during the past month. The only way we have to show our love for God is by the love we have for our brother. And as Father Hugo likes to say, “You love God as much as the one you love the least.”

Love of brother means voluntary poverty, stripping one’s self, putting off the old man, denying one’s self. It also means non-participation in those comforts and luxuries which have been manufactured by the exploitation of others. While our brothers suffer, we must suffer with them. While our brothers suffer from lack of necessities, we will refuse to enjoy comforts. These resolutions, no matter how hard they are to live up to, no matter how often we fail and have to begin over again, are part of the long-range view which Peter Maurin has been trying to give us these past years.

And we must keep this vision in mind, recognize the truth of it, the necessity for it, even though we do not, cannot, live up to it. Live perfection. We are ordered to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and we aim at it, in our intention, though in our execution we may fall short of the mark over and over. As St. Paul says, it is little and by little that we proceed.

If our jobs do not contribute to the common good, we pray God for the grace to give it up. Have they to do with shelter, food, clothing? Have they to do with the Works of Mercy? Everyone should be able to place his job in the category of the Works of Mercy.

This would exclude jobs in advertising, which only increases people’s useless desires, and in insurance companies and banks, which are known to exploit the poor of this country and of others. Whatever has contributed to the misery and degradation of the poor may be considered a bad job, and not to be worked at.

If we examined our consciences in this way we would soon be driven into manual labor, into humble work, and so would become more like Our Lord and Blessed Mother.

By Works of Mercy Dorothy Day would include both the Corporeal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Corporeal Works of Mercy:
*To feed the hungry;
*To give drink to the thirsty;
*To cloth the naked;
*To harbor the harborless;
*To visit the sick;
*To ransom the captive;
*To bury the dead.

Spiritual Works of Mercy:
*To instruct the ignorant;
*To counsel the doubtful;
*To admonish sinners;
*To bear wrongs patienty;
*To forgive offences willingly;
*To comfort the afflicted;
*To pray for the living and the dead.

I wonder how right she is on this matter. Do we have an obligation to seek employment that contributes to the Common Good especially if we are able? The Social Doctrine of the Church speaks plenty about the dignity of work which entails a human’s ability and obligation to contribute meaningfully to the community and hence the Common Good.

I don’t know how committed Dorothy Day is claiming that the work that merits a payment (which could probably be money, goods, or services for Dorothy) for services has to be specifically manual in nature or if onside of what we do for basic goods we need to make sure that somewhere in our activities we are engaged in manual work as well. I would bet on the latter. In several other writings she emphasizes the importance of other work and vocations that do not intrinsically consist of manual labor like educators, clergy, writers, etc.(pretty much any that contributes to the good of society). However having any of these jobs does not excuse the person from having some kind of humble physical practice by which he participates in manual labor that disciplines the body. I think she would say that a person’s job should encompass some Work of Mercy by which they contribute to the common good. And such a person would include some kind of manual labor in their daily discipline. At least that is my take on it.

We do what we can, and the whole field of all the Works of Mercy is open to us. There is a saying, "Do what you are doing." If you are a student, study, prepare, in order to give to others, and keep alive in yourself the vision of a new social order. All work, whether building, increasing food production, running credit unions, working in factories which produce for true human needs, working the smallest of industries, the handicrafts--all these things can come under the heading of the Works of Mercy, which are the opposite of the works of war. -Penance, Dororthy Day