Send mail to The Mustard Seed, PO Box 2592, Worcester MA 01613. The Mustard Seed Catholic Worker is a house of hospitality in the Catholic Worker movement, an apostolic movement begun in 1933 by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. The intent of the movement is to give flesh to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and Catholic social thought by doing the works of mercy and opposing the works of war. Our mission is to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy at a personal and social sacrifice, to nurture and promote a culture of concern and generosity so that human suffering is relieved and a better society not only envisioned but lived as a microcosm of what can be pursued more widely by allies and friends. The Mustard Seed (founded in 1972) is a community of faith, hope and love that has manifested as a living room, as a refuge for the hungry, lonely, and homeless and as an ideal (that in the ideal) is what a Christian community looks like or should look like in practice. Our community is committed to: prayer, personal and communal conversion of life, clarification of thought (lifelong learning), “the building of a society where it is easier for people to be good” and a work culture that sees labor as sacred and that upholds small-scale agriculture and artisanship as virtues and hopeful means for “building a new society in the shell of the old.”
The Mustard Seed has a major role in feeding the hungry. The house of hospitality at 93 Piedmont Street offers a free meal to Worcester’s hungry. The community has fed the hungry for over 40 years and has also worked on behalf of peace and environmental and social justice in many campaigns and initiatives over that time. The community remains committed to the Catholic Worker vision as espoused in its “Aims and Purposes” published each May in the Catholic Worker newspaper.
