The central theme addressed by Dorothy Day (177) in Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Story of the Catholic Worker Movement, is summarized as follows: "All we give is given to us to give." The Catholic Worker Movement was based on underlying theological and spiritual principles, including the resistance to power structures that fail to care for society's most vulnerable, the Christ-inspired belief that voluntary poverty leads to social reform and a transformative sharing in redemptive suffering, and the belief that the duty of all Christians is to literally collaborate with God in the creation of His Kingdom. A fundamental belief expressed by Day (176) was that "one of the greatest evils of the dayà is [a] sense of futility." It is in this background that Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement to serve the needs of the poor, and those workers in need.
Day (60-66) did not shy away from making a case for civil disobedience, noting that there are times when the Christian and the Catholic must disobey the government and man's law in order to obey God's superior law. In essence, what Day recommended was that the individual of conscience act always as Jesus Christ would have mankind act, offering compassion to the downtrodden, resistance to those responsible for this victimization, and behaviors that liberate the self from dependence upon a material world.
Much of the book represents anecdotes about Day's own experiences with the Catholic Worker Movement and life in hospitality houses, urban soup kitchens, and farms. The message of the book is that resistance to social oppression is required of the Christian. As Day (176) put it, by sacrificing the self for other human beings, men create a situation in which love is increased in their hearts in a manner that will "vitalize and transform all of our individual actions," permitting God to "take them and multiply them as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes."
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