We the Ordinary People of the Streets

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.