For a few months now I've had the plan to start a new blog upon settling into a new ministry site for the long term. As I have been delaying on a new blog, I have been realizing that I have been passing up opportunities to write about what has been happening in my life. So I've decided to start blogging again even though I'm not sure I'm settled yet.
As many of you already know, once my postulancy at the hermitage ended in October 2015, I continued living in that monastic community as a participant in the Ora et Labora (Prayer and Work) program. I continued working there as a volunteer and also continued to participate in the communal prayer.
I permanently moved out of the hermitage a few months ago, in early June. Then I visited family and friends on the east coast for about a month.
On my way back here to California, I spent a little less than a week in Chicago. There I was happy to go back and visit San Miguel School, the inner-city Catholic middle school where I taught for the 2013-2014 academic year. I enjoyed seeing some of the students I had taught, even though they had graduated after I had moved from Chicago to California. During this visit, I was glad to attend the graduation of some students who had been enrolled in the school while I taught there. It was also fun getting to visit again with the Brothers of the Christian Schools; I lived with them the year I taught in Chicago.
Once I arrived back in California in the middle of this summer, I went straight to Casa de Clara, the San Jose Catholic Worker House, for a couple of months. My friends Fumi, Andrew, Lisa and Julian were taking staggered vacations this summer, and at times were also away for some work projects. I was filling in for them during their absences this summer. They run a house of hospitality for single women, some of whom have minor children with them, who otherwise would probably be homeless.
About six weeks ago, I moved in here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House. Redwood City is a suburb about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. It takes about 25 minutes to drive to either city.
We have several ministries here. We run a house of hospitality for single moms with kids and for young adults. They live here as they work and save money, progressing toward the day when they will have enough money saved to be able to move out into apartments or other homes. I am reminded of the magnanimous hospitality extended to me when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. There in Africa, my gracious Moroccan friends provided me substantial lessons in hospitality from which I had much to learn. Now I am blessed with many opportunities to practice what I learned in Morocco.
Many generous people assist us Catholic Workers in many ways. Here at this particular house we have a small army of volunteers who energetically work from before dawn until nearly noon every Friday, running a program giving away free food to whoever shows up and asks. Affiliated with the house is a language school a little less than a dozen blocks away where teaching and tutoring is provided, again by a substantial team of volunteers.
In the larger community of Redwood City, numerous homeless persons are our neighbors in many spots in the city, sleeping in tents, under tarps and under the cover of bushes. I find them next to freeway on-ramps and off-ramps. I've been trying to establish relationships with them. I've been finding it difficult at times since often they are transient: sometimes I don't know where a particular person has relocated. However, I've been trying to reach out to them; I'm trying to acknowledge them. I want them to know that I care about them. Saint Teresa of Calcutta repeatedly said that real poverty is feeling unwanted or unloved. When we show people we care about them, we help them to feel their own dignity. They realize their own worth as human beings, because we have treated them like human beings.
Some people might not seem to have much. However, true wealth is not measured in possessions. Lasting wealth is measured in love. We will have amassed eternal wealth depending on how much we have loved, truly loved, purely loved, loved selflessly, without expectation of any return, in this lifetime.
We have the least reason to expect anything in return when we give to people who have nothing. In terms of material possessions, when one has nothing, one has nothing to give. However, in giving to someone who has little or no physical property, one is giving a gift which is spiritually fruitful. When we give to those who are destitute, we do receive. Jesus directs us, "When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."*
Despite not receiving the eternal reward until the next life, nevertheless I feel like God gives me rich rewards in this life. I've long felt called by God to serve others. I feel the gift of joy when I serve. Yet I feel even more joyous, I feel such profound joy, when I strive to help people who are impoverished. As I've striven to serve others, I've felt called more and more to serve those who have less and then those who have even less. Feeling deep joy while aiming to serve the most impoverished, I've felt called to serve those of our despised brothers and sisters who are scraping by on the margins of our society.
When I think of Jesus' instructions in Matthew 25, I feel even more compelled to minister to those who are on the fringes of our society. There Jesus explains
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’
And the King will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’**
Jesus commands us to love our neighbor by feeding those who are hungry, giving drink to those who are thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing those who need garments, caring for those who are ill, and visiting those who can't move about as they would like. We are called to love our neighbor in simple ways.
In addition to loving simply, we can also live simply. I especially enjoy trying to live in simplicity, which is another reason why I feel called to be a Catholic Worker. Over the years I have found that I have had much I didn't really need. We can give away much which we don't need but which others do need in order to live. In the USA, a tremendous amount of food is wasted. We are called to feed the hungry, which we can do with the copious amount of food we have.
We are called also to humility, whether we are Catholic Workers or really whatever our vocations are. I find humility very difficult. I have come to realize that I can do nothing without God's help. Indeed, I have found that I am imperiled without the help of God; I have to totally rely on God.
Essentially I have concluded that I must submit to God. While I do have free will, I was unhappy back when I tried to live my life without trying to discern what God wanted me to do. Later in life, I discerned that I was supposed to leave the hermitage, and I moved from there. I've consistently felt that I made the right decision in leaving. However, once I discerned I was going to leave the hermitage, for a while I was lamenting that I would no longer be vowing obedience to anyone. Yet when I was a postulant, the prior, the head of the hermitage, explained that in vowing obedience, a monk vows obedience not only to the prior, but also to his fellow monks. Thus when living in spiritual community, one does well to be obedient to one's fellow community members. I feel called to be a Catholic Worker since I feel called to live in faith-based spiritual community as a Christian. Yet I also feel called by God to be a Catholic Worker, since in this vocation I am presented with excellent opportunities to be obedient to my brothers and sisters.
In living and working as a Catholic Worker, I also feel called, in my particular identity as a specific individual, to a life of obedience to the Catholic Church, a dynamic which I recently was blessed to discuss with other Catholic Workers. Earlier this month many Catholic Workers, from over a dozen states and a few other countries, gathered in Las Vegas for the International Gathering of Catholic Workers, which usually occurs every five years. During our time together there, we benefited from various workshops. I attended one on the Catholic Worker movement in the context of the Catholic Church. I am, first and foremost, a Catholic; it's critical for me to worship God at Mass and to go to confession and to celebrate God's blessings as a Catholic. Then, if my vocation indeed is to be a Catholic Worker, it arises out of my identity as a Catholic, and part of my calling is to express my Catholicism in my ministry as a Catholic Worker. To give you a little more context, not all persons working at Catholic Worker Houses are Catholic!
Similarly, prayer serves as a foundation for whatever service I seek to render to others. I feel called to serve, yet to serve while grounded in prayer, in study of the Word of God, and in meditation upon it in stillness and silence and solitude. When I serve, I seek to bring the fruits of my contemplation into my service. When I interact with others, I aim to maintain my awareness that Jesus is with me now, in this moment, and always.***
Spending time in still, silent solitude, I try to listen. Jesus speaks to each of us in the silence of our hearts. There I feel His tender touch. I aspire to care gently for Jesus in return when I assist a fellow Catholic Worker in running errands; when I minister to Him in the single mother raising her children without a spouse; and when I encounter Him living under a tarp near the freeway.
* Luke 14:13-14
**Matthew 25:31-40
***Matthew 28:20
