Easy essays

by Peter Maurin

I first met Peter in December, 1932, when George Shuster, then editor of The Commonweal, later president of Hunter College, urged him to get into contact with me because our ideas were so similar, both our criticism of the social order and our sense of personal responsibility in doing something about it. It was not that ""the world was too much with us"" as we felt that God did not intend things to be as bad as they were. We believed that ""in the Cross was joy of Spirit."" We knew that due to original sin, ""all nature travailleth and groaneth even until now,"" but also believed, as Juliana of Norwich said, that ""the worst had already happened,"" i.e., the Fall, and that Christ had repaired that ""happy fault."" In other words, we both accepted the paradox which is Christianity . . . Peter's teaching was simple, so simple, as one can see from these phrased paragraphs, these Easy Essays, as we have come to call them, that many disregarded them. It was the sanctity of the man that made them dynamic. Although he synopsized hundreds of books for all of us who were his students, and that meant thousands of pages of phrased paragraphs, these essays were his only original writings, and even during his prime we used them in the paper just as he did in speaking, over and over again. He believed in repeating, in driving his point home by constant repetition, like the dropping of water on the stones which were our hearts. -- Dorothy Day

Genres: Philosophy, Catholic, Social Justice, Religion, Christianity, Politics

216 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1977

About the author

Born in Languedoc, France, in 1877. Worked as a peasant. Later lived in Canada. Worked as a tutor. In 1933 he founded the Catholic Worker movement in New York with Dorothy Day. A social activist who started farming communes to relieve unemployment during the Depression. Died in 1949.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the way through, I wondered and disagreed and agreed and wondered. It was a good workout.

[Elyse Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, refreshing little book. Not so much essays as groups of bullet points (sort of like Power Point slides!). He gets right to the point, criticizing our society, and the points he made in 1936 are still valid today. Pithy remarks about governments, politicians, and human foibles. I hope some disaffected millennials will read this, because I think they would find a writer sympathetic to their frustrations with the world as it is. God bless Peter Maurin, and God bless the Catholic Worker movement.

[George Donigian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maurin, co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement, wrote multiple essays dealing with matters of justice and faith. His writing style is simple, though the implications of his message are not so simple. While Maurin died in 1949, his concerns feel very contemporary. Eminently quotable.

[Danna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe in this all wholeheartedly. I hope it effects my whole heart.

[Morgan Djuna Sorais Harrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic.