God’s Things

admin • December 21, 2014

“Thank God for turtles in backyards,
For smell of horses and the wagon load of celery,
For scrubbed sweet potatoes
Baking in a push cart oven,
For the smell of charcoal on a dull fall day.
For chestnuts, too, and the dry leaves of Bayard St.
For the little bird in the church yard,
Bright with the yellow breast.
For the pert grasshopper on Katie’s vegetable stand,
For babies, for kittens, for little humble things.
Teresa calls dungeons, the dark dark tenements,
But thank God for poverty which drives us from ugliness
To walk in parks, over bridges, or just among the people.
The sky is ours, the wind, the rain.
There is sun on bare branches, and sun on the housetops.
We cannot be home bound, we must look for God’s things,
So to the streets, to the parks, to the bridge, to the rivers, to the markets, to the bay¾
Everywhere, even here,
Even in the dungeons
In the ugly cities,
There we thank Thee,
Loved One, God!”

–Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker 1941

Archived Comments

Deborah says:

January 18, 2016 at 12:58 pm

Real change comes about when we take the heart of God to a needy world. DOROTHY not only transformed her heart by the living presence of Jesus in her life, but she also carried that love to others and shared it with with those in need ….whether for food for the body or the soul. We must pray for more Dorothys in this world…..let it begin with us!

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Peace, Art, and Philosophy of Work: September with the Dorothy Day Guild

By Casey Mullaney • September 19, 2025
Dear members of the Dorothy Day Guild, Hello! We hope that as always, this missive finds each of you well in these final days of summer. After a slightly slower-paced August, the Guild is now gearing up for an exciting autumn season as we approach the 45th anniversary of Dorothy’s death this November 29th, the day that we hope will very soon be celebrated as her feast day.

Monica Cornell, 1942-2025: A Worker for the Lay Apostolate and Friend of Dorothy Day

By Casey Mullaney • August 16, 2025
Dear Friends, All of us at the Guild were saddened to learn of the death of Monica Ribar Cornell , founding member of and advisor to the Dorothy Day Guild, on Friday, August 8th.

Summer News and Updates from the Guild!

By Casey Mullaney • August 5, 2025
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, We hope this missive finds you well! The heat has finally broken in South Bend, and all of us at the Worker are grateful for the relief as we’ve passed the mid-point of the summer season. For many of us in the Midwest and the Northeast, this time of year is marked by transitions and heightened activity as we begin to bring in stone fruit and tomatoes from our gardens or look towards the start of a new school year. With that in mind, we have a lot of great things to share with you this month, including new resources, song lyrics, events, and two peace and justice action items! Dorothy on the Small Screen: Friday, August 1st marked the third anniversary of the death of Tom Cornell , former editor of the The Catholic Worker, founding member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and close personal friend of Dorothy. Tom met his wife Monica (pictured here at their wedding, where Dorothy was among the guests!) at the Worker in New York in the 1950s; the Cornells passed on their vocation of hospitality and Gospel nonviolence to their children, Tommy and Deirdre, and to the hundreds of others they welcomed into their homes and lives over the course of nearly sixty years of marriage.
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