Learning From Others

When we become who God has always meant us to be, we help others to realize who God has always intended them to be.  When we love, we help others to love.  

In my quest to discover my true identity, I have been assisted by numerous friends.  This week and last week, I have been thinking especially of a dear friend of mine who passed away at the end of last month.  I've written before of this cherished friend, who I have called "Uncle."  In his reflective, meditative way, Uncle supplied helpful insight to me as I have struggled to find my real identity.  For years he served me as a valuable friend, accompanying me as I did work which I knew was not the best fit for me.  

For ten years I worked as an attorney, even though I really didn't want to be doing such work; I was forcing myself to work as an attorney so I could pay off my large debts.  I didn't have an idea of what I would do next until I had been a lawyer for more than a few years.  Even though I didn't know what I would do after I stopped being a lawyer, I was impatient to move on and stop lawyering.  

Usually I remained silent about wanting to switch to some other type of work.  However, looking back at those days as an attorney, it seems that even though so often I kept quiet about wanting to cease lawyering, now I feel I was receiving direction about where I was headed.  Now it seems as if Uncle and the rest of the family were implicitly preparing me and teaching me simply by welcoming me into their homes.  

At this point it seems as if, embedded in their actions of welcoming me into their homes, they were showing me that I was taking steps to get ready for what I would do next.  Yet if Uncle had explained their assistance through words, I envision that he would have taken one of his characteristic pauses in which he carefully pondered what he was about to say.  Then I can imagine him gently and wisely advising me, "In what you are doing right now, you are preparing for what you want to do later."  

Often we don't see right away how we are preparing for what will come later.  Friends help us see what we can't see.  

I visualize him having given me this insight while sitting with him at one of the many family celebrations with him and the rest of his family.  At Thanksgiving dinners and birthday celebrations, I was welcomed into their family.  Insofar as they're Filipino, I was repeatedly experiencing the context of a different cultural background when we celebrated together on these occasions.  

As I was welcomed time and again into their homes, they didn't realize that they were preparing me to go into the Peace Corps.  Just as Uncle and the rest of their family welcomed me into their homes and another cultural background, similarly once I arrived with the Peace Corps in Morocco, I was being welcomed into host families in another culture.  

Long after I left Morocco, I realized that Uncle's warmth and generosity and welcoming nature had been echoed in the hospitality I received in Morocco.  Yet before I had even left Morocco, I had resolved to extend hospitality to others once I left Morocco.  And so I was influenced in my decision to enter a reformed Benedictine monastery, since Benedictine monks offer hospitality to visitors.  I lived and worked at the Camaldolese hermitage on the Big Sur coast of California partly since I strove to be hospitable just as Uncle and the rest of his family, as well as Moroccans, were hospitable to me.  

Similarly, I have felt drawn to live and work at Catholic Worker Houses partly since I have wanted to offer hospitality to those in need of it.  Thus I find myself here at this Catholic Worker House in part due to Uncle's warm and giving and hospitable nature.  

Thus I return to what I wrote in a recent blog post: in being ourselves, we help others to find themselves.  As we give, we help others to give.  

Uncle and his daughters and the rest of their family, in extending hospitality to me, led me to realize I wanted to extend hospitality to others.  In being themselves, they helped me to be me.   When we embrace who God calls us to be, we help others realize who God calls them to be.  

When we love, we help others to love.  When we love others, we show who we are. 

When we love others, we welcome others into our hearts.  When we love others, we welcome God into our hearts.  

When we extend hospitality to our neighbor, we love our neighbor as ourselves,* as Jesus taught us to do.  We would like to receive hospitality from others, so when we offer hospitality to others, we treat others as we would like to be treated.  

We become what we do.  When we love, we become love.  Let us love, help others to love, and become love.  Amen.  

* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

God Calling Us

When we listen to God, we feel the love of God.  If we accept who God is calling us to be, we feel great joy.  If we become who God has always intended us to be, we become our real selves.  Upon following the will of God, we welcome God into our hearts, and thus welcome love into our hearts.*  Love reigns in hearts which are fully open to God.  

At times God calls us in ways we can hear with the ears of our bodies.  At other points God speaks to us in ways which resonate deep in our souls.  

Yesterday when I was walking up to the church for Mass, the church bells were ringing.  I heard not only the reverberating volume of the sonorous bells vibrating against my eardrums.  I also felt echoing in my soul how I had been previously called to prayer by resonating bells.  

I was reminded of when I was traveling in Europe, right after I had finished serving in the Peace Corps in Morocco.  At one point during those travels in Europe, I found a church by following the sound of the tolling of the church bells.  

Yesterday as I approached the church, I thought too of when I lived at the hermitage in Big Sur.  In that Benedictine monastic community, where I thought I was going to become a monk, the church bell sounds before each Mass and each recitation of the Divine Office, in which Psalms are sung and spoken.  The monks, upon hearing the church bell, proceed to the church for Mass or the Divine Office.  They do their best both to hear the call and to follow it.  

We can be guided by what we hear.  God directs us too through the Holy Spirit speaking to us deep within us.  

God is calling out to us.  As Jesus told us, anyone who has ears should listen.**  When we listen, and submit to God's will, and obediently follow the calling God has ordained for us, we find true joy, for then we find our true selves, and become who God has always meant us to be.  As we live out our vocations, we become who God made us to be.  If we become who God intended us to be, we embrace God, and feel love, for God is love.***  As we feel the love of God, we feel joy.  In finding this joy, we are brought on our way back home to God.  

* Romans 5:5  ** Matthew 11:15; Matthew 13:9; Mark 4:9; Luke 8:8 
*** 1 John 4:8,16 

Light Has Risen

Light has risen on us; we are no longer in darkness.  When we were in darkness, darkness clouded our vision.  Now, although we are not in darkness, but in light, yet because we mistakenly think we are in darkness, we cannot see.  Due to the darkness we think is around us, we cannot see despite the light which has already risen, which we do not yet recognize.  When we see so narrowly, we cannot see our loved ones when they are not standing before us.  When faith, hope and love permeate our being, then we see our loved ones even when they appear to be gone.  When we have faith, we welcome the Spirit at work in, through and around us, and see the Spirit transform us.  

We hear of these challenges of perception and vision in today's Gospel reading for Easter Sunday.  In this Gospel reading, we hear that 

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb 
early in the morning,
while it was still dark, 
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter 
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 
"They have taken the Lord from the tomb, 
and we don't know where they put him."
So Peter and the other disciple went out 
and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter 
and arrived at the tomb first; 
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, 
but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him, 
he went into the tomb 
and saw the burial cloths there, 
and the cloth that had covered his head, 
not with the burial cloths 
but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in, 
the one who had arrived at the tomb first, 
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture 
that he had to rise from the dead.*  

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus so early in the morning that it was still dark.  When we are in darkness, we cannot see.  Jesus had just died.  Mary Magdalene thought she was in the midst of a dark time.  When we think we are in darkness, we cannot see.  

Yet Jesus had already risen from the dead.  Mary Magdalene incorrectly thought she was immersed in a dark hour.  Actually, Jesus had dispelled the darkness.  The light had risen.  Yet since Mary Magdalene was convinced that she was in darkness, she did not realize that the light had risen.  

Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb and saw that the huge stone, which had been blocking the entrance to the tomb, had been rolled away.  She went and told Saint Peter, and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, who was Saint John, and told them that they had taken the Lord Jesus.  She did not know where He had been taken, for she did not see Him.  

When we do not see who we love, we think they have gone.  Those we love live in our hearts.  Those we love live through us, in our thoughts and prayers.  We help those we love to live through the words we speak.  In our actions, we can give love to those we love, and let them live through the love we give.  We can honor the memory of those we love by allowing them to live on through us.  

Even though Saint Peter and Saint John saw the empty tomb, they still did not understand the Scripture passages which said that Jesus had to rise from the dead.  They did not realize that the Holy Spirit had raised Jesus from the dead.  

The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us as long as that Spirit dwells in us.**  I can testify to the transformative and healing power of the Holy Spirit.  When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, I read the entire Bible: day after day I would read a little of the Bible, so that after months had passed, I had read the whole Bible.  As I did so, I was purged of particular sinful tendencies I had had for decades.  After I had left Morocco, I looked back and I marveled, and was amazed and puzzled by how I had been purified of certain sinful inclinations I had had for so long.  When I lived at the hermitage, I related to one of the wise Camaldolese monks there how I had been rid of these sinful habits I had had.  I shared with him how I wondered at how I had been freed from the chains of slavery to sin which had bound me for so many years.  This sagacious monk pointed out to me that I was liberated from these sinful patterns upon reading the Bible.  He explained to me that I had been cleansed by The Word that God had spoken to me.***  

When we welcome the Word of God into our hearts, miracles happen.  We are transformed.  The Spirit of God flows into and through us, and frees us from what has been enslaving us.  

Jesus came to proclaim liberty to the captives.****  If we simply consent, God will set us free.  If we turn to God with all our hearts, if we open our hearts to what God has to say to us, God will loosen the bonds which have been holding us back.  If we want God to help us to come to Him, we must do our part: we must welcome Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.*****  When we do so, God transforms us.  

Jesus came to give sight to the blind.******  If, living in utter simplicity, we uncomplicate our lives and simply assent to God, He will show us The Way which gives us the light we need to see as we journey back home to Him.  

If we acquiesce to being humbled by God, He will exalt us.*******  When we agree to the plan God has for us, God abundantly rewards us.  Upon welcoming what God has in store for us, we feel a deep and profound joy.  Here we dwell in the knowledge of who we are and who God is.  Here we have deep peace, and a joy which no one will take away from us.********  This is Heaven.  Let us, then, in this life now, enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and enter into eternal life.  Amen.  

* John 20:1-9 
** Romans 8:11 
*** John 15:3 
**** Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18 
***** Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27 
****** Luke 4:18 
******* Matthew 23:12; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14 
******** John 16:22 

Fear Not Foreigners

Today we are faced with a fundamental choice: do we fear, or do we love?  Do we close our hearts to those in need, or do we open our hearts and our doors to people desperate for help?  

We face this choice each and every day.  At times this choice is brought into sharp relief by what is happening in our world.  

We have been encountering this tension since before we can remember our history as humans.  Two millenia ago, Jesus and His disciples were subjected to exclusion because people feared them as strangers.  In today's Gospel reading, we hear that 

Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea, 
to the territory of the Gerasenes.  
When he got out of the boat, 
at once a man from the tombs 
who had an unclean spirit met him.  
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, 
but the chains had been pulled apart by him 
and the shackles smashed, 
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides 
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.  
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, 
he ran up and prostrated himself before him, 
crying out in a loud voice, 
"What have you to do with me, 
Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!"  
(He had been saying to him, 
"Unclean spirit, come out of the man!")  
He asked him, "What is your name?"  
He replied, "Legion is my name. There are many of us."  
And he pleaded earnestly with him 
not to drive them away from that territory.  

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.  
And they pleaded with him, 
"Send us into the swine. Let us enter them."  
And he let them, 
and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.  
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank 
into the sea, 
where they were drowned.  
The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town 
and throughout the countryside.  
And people came out to see what had happened.  
As they approached Jesus, 
they caught sight of the man 
who had been possessed by Legion, 
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.  
And they were seized with fear.  
Those who witnessed the incident 
explained to them what had happened 
to the possessed man and to the swine.  
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.  
As he was getting into the boat, 
the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.  
But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead, 
"Go home to your family and announce to them 
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you." 
Then the man went off 
and began to proclaim in the Decapolis 
what Jesus had done for him; 
and all were amazed.*  

Today I heard a brief sermon on this Gospel passage which provided new insight about it to me.  This morning here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, as we usually do on Monday mornings, we gathered with each other and with other Catholic Workers from around the San Francisco Bay Area.  After updating each other about our lives, we moved into the living room for our liturgy together.  Our dear friend Steve, who is a Jesuit priest, presided at our house Mass here.  In his brief sermon, Steve explained to us that in these verses, Jesus and His disciples had traveled out of Jewish territory.  During this story, they were strangers to the people they met.  

The residents of that area asked them to leave.  We are told that they were afraid when they saw the man who had been possessed by a demon, who used to scream and bruise himself with rocks, now sitting in his right mind.  

Why did they ask Jesus and His disciples to leave?  Jesus and His disciples were strangers to them.  Jesus had just performed a miracle, expelling a demon out of a man who had been hitherto known for his screaming and bruising himself with stones.  The people living in that area could not understand how this man had just been miraculously transformed from being a madman into a mentally stable, sane person.  

People fear what they do not understand.  People fear what and who they do not know.  People fear the stranger.  People fear someone else they haven't gotten to know, when they haven't spent time with that person.  

We make judgments about people based on little or no information.  We fear people when we know nothing about them.   

If we're busy fearing someone, we are closing our hearts to them.  If we fear our neighbor, we are closing our hearts also to God, for we are closing ourselves off from the love which God wishes to shower upon us through our neighbor.  If we fear our neighbor, we cannot open our hearts to be able to love our neighbor.  

In love there is no room for fear, for perfect love drives out fear.**  When we purely love, we do not fear the person in front of us.  If we purely love, we do not fear what might happen through our decision to love.  When we perfectly love, we simply extend the love which is needed by the person in front of us.  

Unfortunately people are often motivated by fear to exclude others they do not know, have never or barely met, and who they do not understand.  As the mayor of Philadelphia recently described, at the airport there this weekend, officials detained and then turned away Syrian refugees.  He related that by all accounts they had waited to obtain months to obtain the proper documentation to be able to legally enter the U.S.  He added that they were being sent back to a war-ravaged nation.  They will be endangered for various reasons.  

Jesus was similarly endangered.  When Jesus was a baby, He and Saint Joseph and Our Blessed Mother Mary were refugees.  They fled from their home country to Egypt.***  As if these details of their flight into Egypt were not enough to make us recognize Jesus in refugees among us, Jesus has told us that whatever we do to the least of those among us, we do to Him.****  Jesus has explained to us that when we fail to welcome the stranger, we reject Him.*****  When we turn away refugees, we refuse to welcome Jesus.  

When we fear what might happen to us from loving someone else, we cannot love that other person.  When we fear, we wall ourselves off from love.  In fearing our neighbor, we close ourselves off from what we might learn from our neighbor.  By fearing our neighbor, we refuse to learn from our neighbor.  

I have learned in my own life that we have much to learn from people of foreign cultures.  When I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, I enjoyed the gracious hospitality of  Moroccans who were Muslim.  I had never before been offered such generous hospitality by anyone in the United States.  

Which of us living here in the United States would invite a stranger into our home to share lunch with us?  Many foreigners who visit Morocco receive exactly such a welcome.  After being treated to such a meal by Moroccans they have just met, guests are often told by their Moroccan hosts that if they would like to lay down, and even nap, they may do so.  Which of us here in the states would extend such hospitality to someone we had just met?  

While I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, another Peace Corps Volunteer asked me how my life would be different once I returned to the states.  I replied that I was looking forward to extending hospitality to others.  And so I was influenced in my decision to enter a reformed Benedictine monastic community, since Benedictine monks offer hospitality to visitors.  I was influenced in my decision to enter monastic life at the hermitage in Big Sur because Moroccans had implicitly encouraged me to extend hospitality to others through their own shining examples.  

Similarly, I was influenced in my decision to become a Catholic Worker, practicing hospitality, and reaching out to those who are homeless, because Moroccans had shown me the importance of providing hospitality.  They had provided me outstanding examples of how to extend hospitality to others.  

I learned how to extend hospitality from Moroccans, who are Muslim.  To exclude all people of certain religions, or of particular nations, as is current practice, is to wall ourselves off from what they have to teach us.  If we refuse to welcome entire groups of people, we refuse many opportunities to love, to learn and to grow.  If we reject whole groups of people, we reject Jesus many times.  If we refuse to welcome refugees, we reject Jesus in our actions, regardless of whether we claim to be compassionate toward refugees.  

We choose everyday whether or not we will welcome the stranger.  We decide each day if we will open our hearts to love our neighbor or if out of fear we will close ourselves off to our neighbor.  We must always be deciding whether we will choose to learn from our neighbor and grow as loving human beings, or if we will choose to exclude our neighbor and refuse to be taught by him or her.  

If we have humility, we will want to learn from our neighbor.  We will realize that even though someone is different from us, we can learn from that person.  

If we have humility, we will embrace opportunities to learn, and thus grow, and thus love better.  If we are not humble, we will reject chances to learn from our neighbor, walling ourselves off from how God seeks to teach us through our neighbor.  

Always we are presented with these choices on our spiritual path.  Everyday we must choose between love and fear.  

* Mark 5:1-20 
** 1 John 4:18 
*** Matthew 2:13-15 
**** Matthew 25:40 
***** Matthew 25:43 

Beyond Only Thanksgiving

Today's Gospel reading is from Luke 17:11-19.  There we hear that 

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him.  
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, 
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”  
And when he saw them, he said, 
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”  
As they were going they were cleansed.  
And one of them, realizing he had been healed, 
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  
He was a Samaritan.  
Jesus said in reply, 
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?  
Where are the other nine?  
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”  
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; 
your faith has saved you.”  

In the reading, the ten men with leprosy call out to Jesus.  They call upon Jesus to heal them.  So too when we want something, we call out to God.  

I am reminded of an interview with Pope Francis which I recently saw.  In describing how people pray, the Pope remarked that often we ask God for things and we thank God for things.  The Pope explained that we are indeed called to ask God for what we need and to thank God for what God gives us.  Yet the Pope asked whether we also praise God and if we adore God, as God calls us to do.  When I heard these words of the Pope, I felt that they were helpful guidance for which I was grateful.  

Often when we pray, we only petition God for what we want and thank God.  Yet when Thanksgiving Day is over, do we thank God just as much?  Do we thank God enough?  It is so easy to get what we want and not thank God for it.  We can also easily get into a habit of taking what we have for granted.  We have so much; are we grateful to God for all of it?  

I was struck today too in the reading by how the one man who returned to Jesus to thank Him was a Samaritan.  The Jews and Samaritans were at odds with each other: neither esteemed the other well.  Yet only one man returned to give thanks and praise to God, and he was a Samaritan.  

It is so easy to rely on our preconceptions of who we think that people are based on their belonging to a certain group, which we believe makes them different from us.  However, we have much to learn from others, especially those who are different from us.  

I think of the gracious and magnanimous hospitality I received from Moroccans when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco.  Upon living there for two years, and being so warmly and generously received, I realized I had much to learn from people who had seemed so different from me.  

And why did that foreigner, the outsider, the different one, that one man receive the gift of healing from Jesus?  Jesus tells that one man that his faith saved him.  God works wonders in those who have faith in Him.  When we admit that we need God, God gives us what we need.  When we humble ourselves, God heals us.  

We have so much.  God has given to us so bountifully, and what He most wants to give us is so much more enriching than what we often request from Him.  We are called to thank God for so much, and to praise Him and to adore Him in His great love.  Having received so much from Him in His infinite love, which is so much greater than we are, we are called to be humble; we are called to realize that we were created to praise Him.  

All glory and praise and honor be unto God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen.  

Word Made Flesh

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