The last year has been lovely. God has shed His grace upon me. Through His grace, He has empowered me to do His will. I feel that I have done what He sent me here to do. And so it seems that the time has come to move on from here.
And so on January 1 I will move back to the hermitage. I feel God is calling me back there.
I imagine you are wondering how this conclusion intersects with my previous discernment to leave the hermitage.
Although I did not explicitly say so, when I left the hermitage to serve poor persons, I was overwhelmingly focused on rejoining the Peace Corps. I re-applied to the Peace Corps near the end of 2015, and in early 2016, Peace Corps informed me that they could not offer me a position.
I applied or at least inquired with other organizations serving impoverished people abroad. Either I didn't hear back at all, or at other times it didn't work out with those other organizations.
Thus in time I came to realize that one reason I left the hermitage, to serve poor persons overseas, was not materializing. I let it go, and so the path I thought I was following turned out to be taking me not as far away as I had envisioned.
Since it started becoming clear I wouldn't be moving to another country again, I began to ponder serving poor folks here in the states. Having been a Catholic Worker in San Jose before I moved into the hermitage, I began to think about once again being a Catholic Worker.
After a brief stint last summer filling in for my friends at Casa de Clara, the San Jose Catholic Worker House, I moved in here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House. After not too long, I began to get to know homeless folks here in Redwood City. I came to witness the sense of community amongst those living on the streets here. I became much closer with them than I had ever felt with homeless folks anywhere else. And so I have felt much fulfillment as I have served people living on the streets here.
And yet I have gradually, steadily, increasingly felt more and more spiritually malnourished despite how I have continued the spiritual practices I deepened at the hermitage. I read Scripture. I attend Mass. Yet I have consistently felt that God has been calling me back into more solitude, more silence, more stillness, more contemplation. I have felt that God has been calling me back into the deep prayer which monastic life fosters, and then will flow whatever service to poor folks naturally, organically arises out of monastic life.
I feel too that God has given me the grace to make vows to Him. I know that I can make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to Him. If I were not to do so, I would be wasting graces God has given to me. If you know me well, you know well that I cannot stand wasting what God has given to us. God has given us marvelous gifts: we should not only appreciate and use well His gifts, but thank and praise and adore and glorify God who gives us such magnificent gifts. Out of gratitude to Him, I do not wish to be the servant who buries in the ground a coin or coins he has received from his Master.* I do not wish to be the servant who wraps up in a cloth the coin He has received from His Master.**
I used to think that God had not empowered me to make a vow of chastity. Perhaps I was correct. What I do know is that at times I have prayed to God for grace, and He has given it to me. I have recalled how Our Blessed Mother Mary told Saint Catherine of Laboure that so many people do not receive certain graces because they do not ask for them. I have seen for myself how it is true that you can receive a grace you have not had if you but ask for it.
And so I will be moving on with a desire to use well what God has given to me. I wish to invest well the talents God has given me, so that I may make more,*** just as Jesus teaches us to do.
I look forward to trying to use well the gifts God has given to me. I face forward into the future, though parting under these circumstances is bittersweet, and not just for me.
I think of the homeless woman who once again I'll call "Kimberly." She has shared her pain with me, and so she and I have come to appreciate each other. Despite her sorrow, she has expressed to me that she wants to understand my reasons for leaving, and the goals I hope to reach, so that she can better support me in my decision to leave here.
I think too of the homeless woman who again I'll call "Anna." As she has been considering my moving away, in the context of how she has been well aware that she must repent and do her best to sin no more, she has confidently proclaimed that at the very least, she will see me again in eternity.
I am greatly consoled by these mature words of faith, hope and love. I am encouraged by the spiritual growth these words of sureness convey. I am comforted as I adjust to leaving here, knowing that such faith resides amongst those who are homeless here.
Thus I know that I am not deluding myself when I say that I have seen homeless persons rising up here. I can move on since I have seen real growth and progress among them.
I am reminded that recently a certain homeless woman who I'll once again call "Jane" showed up here at the Catholic Worker House. She had rung the doorbell, and in speaking with a Catholic Worker here, she expressed gratitude, saying, "Thank you for helping me to rise up." Jane too has been rising up from where she had been, to a better place, proven by the gratitude she has expressed.
I have also seen with my own eyes how a certain woman, who I'll call "Helen," has also moved forward in her life. Helen used to be homeless. Now she lives in her own apartment, which I have seen. I need not doubt her progress, which is evident.
I hear and see all this proof of rising up with my own ears and with my own eyes. As my time here draws to a close, I am encouraged by what I hear and see.
And so, as night has fallen today, so too the twilight of my time here as a Catholic Worker is also upon me. Yet as this night is upon us, I am not in despair, for a new dawn is rising up in homeless friends I have made here. This dawn I have been seeing break open in them gives me hope, a hope which stretches beyond them, into the wide community of humanity. This hope extends beyond this lifetime, into the limitless expanse of eternity. The fruits of this faith, hope and love will be seen in eternity. In eternity, we will see the consequences of our faith, hope and love.
Let us move forward in faith, hope and love now, so that we may live in love for all eternity. Amen.
* Matthew 25:18,25
** Luke 19:20
*** Matthew 25:20,23
