"The Final Word is Love," by Dorothy Day

What follows is the Postscript of Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness — here laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure.

Two notes: First, Peter Maurin was Day’s collaborator; together they co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement. And second, that movement was founded in 1933, devoted to living out Gospel teachings through voluntary poverty, pacifism, and "houses of hospitality" for the impoverished and marginalized.

We were just sitting there talking
when Peter Maurin came in.

We were just sitting there talking
when lines of people began to form,
saying, “We need bread.”
We could not say, “Go, be thou filled.”
If there were six small loaves
and a few fishes, we had to divide them.
There was always bread.

We were just sitting there talking
and people moved in on us.
Let those who can take it, take it.
Some moved out and that
made room for more.
And somehow the walls expanded.

We were just sitting there talking
and someone said, “Let’s all go live on a farm.”

It was as casual as all that, I often think.
It just came about. It just happened…

It is not always easy to be joyful,
to keep in mind the duty of delight.

The most significant thing
about The Catholic Worker
is poverty, some say.

The most significant thing
is community, others say.
We are not alone anymore.

But the final word is love.
At times it has been,
in the words of Father Zossima,
a harsh and dreadful thing,
and our very faith in love
has been tried through fire.

We cannot love God
unless we love each other,
and to love we must know each other.
We know him in the breaking of bread,
and we are not alone any more.
Heaven is a banquet
and life is a banquet, too,
even with a crust,
where there is companionship.

We have all known the long loneliness
and we have learned that the only solution
is love and that love comes with community.

It all happened while we sat there talking,
and it is still going on.

+ Dorothy Day