Listen To Echoes

The truth of who we are echoes over our lives.  The persistent emergence of our identity resounds in our souls, a message which, in its recurrence, repeatedly encourages us to stay true to who God faithfully calls us to be, and to evermore become.  

During my present stay here at the hermitage, I have been witnessing how my life continues to unfold consistently in ways which reinforce how God calls me to be who He has always meant me to be.  In the midst of this stay here, I hear my life echoing who I am.  

These few days of retreat seem like they can be taken as a tiny version of the year and a half I lived here.  In the ebb and flow of my emotions now, and in the present stirrings in my soul, and in the current movements of the Holy Spirit within me, I am reminded of similar interior shifts when I resided here.  

Much like when I moved in a few years ago to live here, similarly a couple of nights ago I was filled with joy and excitement at the prospect of basking in the stillness and silence and solitude here, so conducive to prayer and meditation.  Upon both arrivals, I deeply breathed in this contemplative atmosphere.  

Both three years ago and two days ago, I calmed down soon after arriving.  I began to take stock of who I am, namely someone with monastic tendencies, yet also with great love of those who are poor.  Then I came to see myself, and now I view myself, as a servant of those who are impoverished, and as having an inner monk I am to nourish through spiritual disciplines I can follow even in the midst of whatever activity occupies me.  

I practiced such attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit amidst busy days while I still lived here.  After I had lived here for about half a year, I started driving monks who couldn't drive, usually to their doctor appointments.  Today, about halfway through this visit, I drove to Carmel and picked up a monk; he was on his way back from monastic business with other Camaldolese monks in Italy.  After meeting him in Carmel, I brought him back here to the hermitage.  

As I progressed in my residence here, I concluded that it didn't seem that God was calling me to become a monk here, but that God had been calling me to be here so I could deepen my prayer life.  Similarly, while I have been deeply nourished during the last couple of days here, it seems clear to me that I am to ponder in my heart, as our Blessed Mother Mary did.*  I feel I am to retain and treasure what has so nurtured me and allow it to guide me and to empower me and to light my path** as I strive to serve my neighbors, many of whom are poor.  As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton noted, we are to bring the contemplative treasures we have been given and share those spiritual fruits out in the world.  We are to share with others the great love which God has bestowed upon us.  

To properly serve, we must show great love.  If we empty ourselves, God can fill us with His love.  Nourished by the presence of Jesus, especially felt in stillness and silence and solitude, we can help others to feel the presence of Jesus.  If we remain in Jesus, and Jesus in us,*** we can bear much fruit in His name; conversely, without Him, we can do nothing.****  If we are filled with the love of God,***** we can recognize Jesus in those who are the least among us,****** and we can welcome Jesus into our hearts.  

When we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we hear and welcome The Word which God has been speaking in eternity.  The Word, the love of God, has been echoing for all eternity.  We hear this echo calling to us in the depths of our souls.  When we hear, and listen to, and respond with open hearts to this repeating invitation, we become who God has always intended us to be.  

* Luke 2:19 
** Psalm 119:105 
*** John 15:4,5,6,7,9,10 
**** John 15:5 
***** Romans 5:5 
****** Matthew 25:40,45 

Emptying Ourselves Completely

Today is the feast day of Saint Romuald.  Today in the Catholic Church we commemorate the life of this saint who lived in the tenth and the eleventh centuries and who reformed Benedictine monasteries.  In time, his reforms were seen to have formed a new religious congregation of monks who came to be known as Camaldolese, named after their head monastery called Camaldoli, which is in Italy.  

After spending a year and a half living at New Camaldoli Hermitage on the Big Sur coast of California, I grew quite fond of the monks there, as well as the folks who work there too.  While I lived there, I came to realize better how and why we can be nourished deeply in the recesses of our souls by the spiritual disciplines of solitude, silence, prayer and meditation.  There in a dwelling space called a monastic cell, a monk lives as a solitary, assisted by these monastic spiritual practices as he strives to respond to God's call.  These spiritual disciplines position us so that, in opening our hearts to God, we consent to God loving our neighbor through us.  

I was significantly guided in my pursuit of these spiritual practices by the Rule of Saint Romuald.  He wrote it as a brief directive for men who came to monasteries to commune with God.  In his little rule, Saint Romuald counsels 

Sit in your cell as in Paradise.  Put the whole world behind you and forget it.  Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish.  The path you must follow is in the Psalms--never leave it.  

If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.  

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.  

Realize above all that you are in God's presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.  

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.  

The Rule of Saint Romuald resonates with how I have sought to orient my life over the last half dozen years.  I do my best to take time to retreat and forget about the world for a time so as to be recollected in my soul.  I have also aimed to forget the false notions the world gives me.  I have been aspiring to forget the false self that the world has tried to convince me I am, as the Trappist monk Thomas Merton describes.  We can choose to reject the empty promises the world makes, vainly suggesting that we always need to be buying and possessing certain items in order to remain relevant in today's ever-changing material world.  Rather than consume our energies on fruitless pursuits, we can direct our focus elsewhere.  In still silent solitude, we are better positioned to listen to God so we can ever more discover our true selves.  

This rule directs us to take every opportunity we can to sing the Psalms in our hearts.  Insofar as we are to pray always,* again the Rule confirms my inclinations.  So often I find myself mindlessly wasting precious time on trivial concerns which ultimately do not matter.  Rather than burn up our energy on matters which are truly unimportant, instead we can strive to orient our hearts toward God in every instant.  

In his rule, Saint Romuald advises us not to feel discouraged when our minds wander from words of wisdom, which they certainly will.  Rather, we are once again to apply ourselves to The Word in front of us.  So often I find my mind straying off course.  Thus I so appreciate Saint Romuald's gentle encouragement, as a reminder to remain on course.  We should not feel downtrodden when we fall, since most certainly we shall fall; we must remain resolute and we must once again rise once we have fallen.  

Saint Romuald reminds us that we are in God's presence.  Jesus is with us always.**  We are to stand before God like a person standing before an emperor.  Seeing ourselves for what we truly are, nothing without the help of God, we are humbled.  Having been humbled, we are well-situated for God to work through the Holy Spirit in us.  

Realizing that we are nothing without the aid of God, we can empty ourselves.  Knowing that we can do nothing without God, we can wait for God to transform us.  Upon being humbled, we can receive the grace and strength from God we need, for God gives grace to the humble.***  

Seeing our true place, and humbled by the reality that we can do nothing without God, we can then open our hearts to God.  If we are silent and wait patiently upon God, we can be nourished by the presence of Jesus.  Our Lord Jesus empowers us to do the will of our Heavenly Father.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.****

By the grace of God, we can come to do what by human standards seems impossible.  For humans, to love like God loves is impossible.  For God, nothing is impossible.*****  

Through the grace of God, we become able to give to everyone who asks,****** as Jesus instructs us to do in today's Gospel reading.  Having sought the tender, warm, loving touch of Jesus in silence, stillness and solitude, we become empowered through the gentle strength of His presence to convey His love to others.  By opening our hearts to God, we welcome God into our hearts, so that Jesus abides in us,******* and loves others through us.  Opening our hearts to God, we allow God to love others through us.********  We can thus let the love of God be shown through us.  Let us let God love others through us.  Amen.  

* 1 Thessalonians 5:17 
** Matthew 28:20 
*** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 
**** Philippians 4:13 
***** Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37 
****** Matthew 5:42 
******* John 15:9 
******** Romans 5:5 

Receiving Upon Giving

We are dust, and unto dust we shall return.*  So we are reminded today on Ash Wednesday, at Mass when we step forward and each one of us has a cross of ashes made on his or her forehead.  

And so begins Lent, our more intense period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, over the course of about the next six weeks, between now and Easter Sunday.  Today at Mass the priest noted that in Lent, we are not only entering into a practice of more frequent penance in atonement for our sins.  During Lent, on Good Friday, we especially remember our Lord Jesus dying for us on the Cross to save us from our sins.  To contrast with our Lenten penance, today the priest pointed out that we are also anticipating the triumph of our Lord Jesus over death through His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  

As we enter this period of intensified prayer during Lent, we may examine how we approach prayer.  As Pope Francis has inquired of us, in our prayer do we only ask God for things and thank God for things?  If we are focused on what we want, we are likely to experience difficulty in receiving what God wants to give us.  If we are preoccupied with what we want, we are less likely to be adoring and praising God and always rejoicing** out of gratitude for whatever God gives us.  Yet if we are excited about whatever God has in store for us, we practice another approach.  

I heard about such a different conception of prayer yesterday when I drove with someone else to pick up some items which were being donated to the Catholic Worker House.  As we traveled to, and later back from, our donor's home, my passenger was sharing with me how she has come to view prayer.  She described that when she is sitting down to read the Bible, she feels like she is receiving a gift.  It seems to her like she is opening a present, not knowing what is inside.  She suggested that when you aspire to truly receive God's Word into your heart, you do not know what God is about to give you: you do not know how God is about to transform you, if you have truly opened your heart to God.  You are not aware what specific spiritual blessings you are about to receive.  

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, explained, "Our God does not want to know what we want, but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what He is preparing to give us."  How can we prepare ourselves to receive what God wants to give us?  As Jesus tells us in today's Gospel reading, "When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret."***  By sitting motionless in silent solitude, we still and quiet ourselves alone, having removed ourselves from distractions.  We are well-positioned to listen to what God wants to say to us.  We are situated to receive what God wants to give to us.  

We receive what God gives us when we let go of our own desires.  We give up our desires also through fasting.  We tend to conceptualize fasting as giving something up.   Often we give up certain food during Lent, though sometimes people fast from social media during Lent.  Someone can fast from anything.  We are to fast from all things which separate us from God.  When we fast, really we are going beyond giving something up and are doing more than trying to live in greater simplicity.  When we fast, we tell God that we are willing to, and are trying to, subordinate our desires to His will.  As we fast, we show God that we seek to be submissive to His will, and thus obediently open our hearts to what He wants to give us. 

When we give something up, we receive something back.  When we die to ourselves, when we die to our desires, when we set fire to our desires and aim to reduce our desires to a pile of ashes, we try to humble ourselves.  God gives grace to the humble.****  

When we give up what we have out of love of our neighbor, we humble ourselves for the sake of love.  So it is with almsgiving.  When we give to those who are needy, we step out of our comfort zone to help others in their discomfort.  When we give out of our comfort, we are able to comfort the afflicted.  Saint Basil of Caesarea has said that the extra coat which is hanging unused in our closet belongs to the poor shivering impoverished person who has no coat.  Out of our comfortable wealth of unused property, we can comfort people who do not have what we have.  We can easily give them what they need but we do not need since we have more than we need.  

We can give away what we have to help others.  We can give up to God what we have.  We can give up, meaning that we can surrender.  We can give up ourselves to God.  We can surrender ourselves to the will of God.  In return we can receive from God the gift of simplicity.  We can receive back from God the amazing gift of total dependence on Him.  Realizing that we are to turn to God for all we need, then we are in a position to receive from God the gift of awareness of who we truly are.   

* Genesis 3:19 

** 1 Thessalonians 5:16 

*** Matthew 6:6 

**** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 

Discerning My Vocation

Sometime before the end of the summer, I'll be moving on from the Catholic Worker House here in Redwood City.  Both the other Catholic Workers here and I have agreed that it's not a good fit here with me.  

Recently I've realized that I have performed best in my life where there has been more rather than less structure.  Here at the house the day unfolds in a fairly unstructured way, even relative to other Catholic Worker Houses where I've lived or visited.  

I've also known for a while that obedience is a strength God has given me.  I don't have a problem with work where I am told what to do; in fact, when I'm instructed to do something, I work well.  At Catholic Worker Houses, workers may function in an egalitarian fashion or may take direction from a worker who exercises more authority.  Here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, it's decided in an unregimented way who does which work.  Each person is free to autonomously decide on what tasks he or she is going to work.  

Going forward, as I discern my vocation, I am being reminded that God has blessed me with many traits and strengths with which God has prepared me for my vocation, for the specific ministry to which God has been calling me.  I feel that God has led me to maintain certain spiritual practices and disciplines to help me seek Him and to love and adore and glorify and praise Him and to help me to love and serve my neighbor.  

I feel nourished when I silently sit still in solitude trying to listen to God.  I cherish the spiritual practices I learned from the warm, wonderful monks at the hermitage where I lived for a year and a half.  I still try to live out these monastic practices, continuing to embrace the inner monk dwelling within me.  

Yet I have been enjoying spiritual community, including while attending Mass daily, worshipping God and celebrating His blessings, praising Him, and often I have been sitting in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  I feel joy these days, including when I aim to serve my neighbor, especially those amongst us who are the most impoverished, including people who are homeless.  I am grateful to God that I can offer to hospitality to others here, especially to those who are sorely in need.  I revel in living simply.  It seems to me that I am being myself, I am being who I am, who God created me to be when I strive to live in this way.  

So how am I to live out these spiritual disciplines?  What is my vocation?  Recently I started meeting with a new spiritual director.  While speaking with him, we discussed how I am to aspire to have a blank slate in my spirit.  In talking with Jesus about who I am, and how I am to live and to be, I am to do my best to remain totally open to what Jesus is trying to help me see about myself.  I strive to have the humility to be a simple servant, ready to carry out the will of God in my life.  I want to open my heart to God, so that God can work through me.  I want God to do His work through me.  

And so I wait to see where God is inviting me.  God is leading us into all Truth, including The Truth of who He is and the truth of who we are.  If we have faith, and thus are open to God leading us, Jesus, as The Way, will lead us into Himself, into The Truth, and we will have Him, The Life.*  If He abides in us and we in Him,** we will have life, and abundantly have it.***  If we will but listen to God, and follow Him, we will have true joy, borne of the truth of who we are in relation to God.  No one can take this joy away from us.****    

I seek the truth of who I am and who God is.  This is the way to true life.  This is true joy.  

* John 14:6 
** John 15:4 
*** John 10:10 
**** John 16:22 

Praying Waters Souls

During Mass today, I noted synergy between my early morning reading and the sermon.  This morning, before I went to Mass, I was reading some spiritual maxims written by Saint John of the Cross, the Carmelite friar and mystic who lived in Spain in the sixteenth century.  Among other axioms written by him, this morning I read how he wrote that "By prayer aridity is expelled, devotion increased, and the interior practice of virtue is established in the soul."  

Then, on this first Sunday of Advent, I attended Mass at 7:30 a.m. here in Redwood City.  During the sermon, the priest analogized us to cornstalks.  He also likened how much we pray, and with how much devotion, and under what circumstances, as being analogous to the extent to which a cornstalk is rooted in the ground.  

In the midst of arid, dry weather, the roots of a cornstalk grow deeper into the ground as they search for water.  So too when we experience spiritual aridity, that is, dryness in prayer, God is calling us to persist in our faith and in our prayer and to deepen our relationship with Him.  As Saint John of the Cross tells us, we expel aridity by praying.  By continuing to pray in the midst of spiritual dryness, we show God that we love Him.  God wants us to seek Him humbly in earnest.    

Roots stabilize the cornstalk.  With deep and extensive roots, a cornstalk can withstand strong winds.  So too when we weather severe storms in life, if we have a deep, devoted, fervent prayer life, through the grace of God, we will resist any and all challenges which we encounter.  

The priest added that the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent are characterized by more intense fasting and prayer than usual.   He offered encouragement to more deeply enter into prayer in this Advent season.  

During Advent, as we meditate upon the birth of Jesus which we will soon celebrate, we are invited to live more ascetically over these next few weeks.  At times we experience periods of spiritual aridity which we do not consciously choose, and are called upon then to pray more intensely.  Yet at certain times in the liturgical calendar, we are also called to make more intense sacrifices of prayer and fasting, such as during Advent and Lent.  Thus in this current Advent season, we are invited to plumb the depths of own our souls more deeply in prayer.  In doing so in still, silent solitude, we seek a conscious communion with Jesus which can strengthen us against whatever storms may confront us in our lives.  

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