We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought)

We, the Ordinary People of the Streets comprises the powerful reflections by Madeleine Delbrêl (1904-1964), an award-winning poet, writer, and Catholic layperson whose conviction and insight led her to a life of social work in the atheistic, Communist-dominated city of Ivry-sur-Seine, France. Delbrêl draws from her own experiences living in Ivry, witnessing to the possibility of a life at once rooted radically in the church and fully engaged in the world. This posthumously published collection spans Delbrêl’s life, from a piece she wrote as a seventeen-year-old atheist to her later Christian works. Her passionate essays explore the Christian’s role in a secular society, the difficulty of faith in an atheistic environment, the need for prayer, the centrality of the church, and the fundamental importance of loving both God and our neighbors.

MADELEINE DELBRÊL, a poet by nature and an atheist by conviction, underwent a radical conversion at the age of twenty that led her to found, in 1933, a “gospel” community of lay women dedicated to poverty, chastity, and work among the poor. Though publishing only two books during her lifetime, including La Route, a book of poetry awarded the Sully Prudhomme Prize, she left behind a wealth of texts now collected in four volumes.