Passing the Test

This whole life is a test. In it, God proclaims in Jesus that he forgives and is patient with the most dreadful of sins. Thus, God defines himself - who he is. He defines heaven in the person of Jesus, in one word, “Love,” pure Love. All those who wish to go to heaven must join with God in the virtues that define the hereafter itself: love, patience, kindness, empathy, compassion, mercy and forgiveness. The greater the challenge it is do extend these virtues on earth, the greater the opportunity one has to past the test of life in order to gain eternal life.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

1 John 4:7-12
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.
Donate! To the poor homeless at http://servantsofthefather.org/donate_2_homeless or post checks to - Servants of the Father of Mercy, Inc., P.O. Box 42001, Los Angeles, CA 90042. All Donations are Tax Deductible

What If?

By Betty Eadie

This time my vision focused on a street corner in a large city. There, I saw a man lying in a drunken stupor on the sidewalk near a building. One of my guides said, “What do you see?”

“Why, a drunken bum lying in his wallow,” I said, not understanding why I had to see this.

My guides became excited. They said, “Now we will show you who he really is.”

His spirit was revealed to me, and I saw a magnificent man, full of light. Love emanated from his being, and I understood that he was greatly admired in the heavens. This great being came to earth as a teacher to help a friend that he had spiritually bonded with.

His friend was a prominent attorney who had an office a few blocks from this corner. Although the drunk now had no recollection of this agreement with his friend, his purpose was to be a reminder to him of the needs of others. I understood that the attorney was naturally compassionate, but seeing the drunk would spark him to do more for those who needed his means. I knew that they would see each other, and the attorney would recognize the spirit within the drunk – the man within the man – and be moved to do much good. They would never know their covenanted roles here, but their missions would be fulfilled nonetheless. The drunk had sacrificed his time on earth for the benefit of another. (Excerpt from the New York Times Bestseller: Embraced by the Light, Betty Eadie, Bantam Books, New York, 1992, page 99.)
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Corporate Sandwich Boards or Charity?

Some are chilled to the idea that wearing an ice cream logo can help keep the homeless warm. Should companies give for the sake of giving instead of treating the homeless like a NASCAR racer blanketed in an avalanche of logos?

Scroll down to near the bottom of this main page and let us know what you think. Participate in a new poll:

Some homeless now have commercial sponsors: they're sporting warm winter jackets with logos for Ben & Jerry's ice cream helping to raise money for a bunch of nuns who aid the needy. Is this a case of being “corporate sandwich boards” or receiving charity?

Thank you for participating in this and all the polls at Homeless In America!
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Special Day for Sheep

All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray!

Isaiah 53:6

"Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by his strong arm. Here is his reward with him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock, in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom and leading the ewes with care." Is. 40:10-12

The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. Ps. 23:1

Let us pray . . .

R Lead us home, Lord!

You came to search out the last, lost and the least,
- carry the needy to shelter. R

You preferred the company of the poor, the outcast and the loser,
- teach us to see the broken as you do. R

You took upon yourself the blows of evil in our world,
- defend those who are abused, abandoned and oppressed. R

You gave your life so that all might find their way home,
- grant the homeless housing on earth and our departed family and friends a place in heaven. R

You saw how the Lord, your God carried you, as a man carries his child, all along your journey until you arrived in this place. Dt. 1:31

_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.
Donate! To the poor homeless at http://servantsofthefather.org/donate_2_homeless or post checks to - Servants of the Father of Mercy, Inc., P.O. Box 42001, Los Angeles, CA 90042. All Donations are Tax Deductible

The Moonflower’s Lesson for Both the Rich and the Poor

Ipomoea Alba, otherwise known as Moonflowers are so called because they bloom in the evening. They have large fragrant, white or pink blooms on twining vines. The flowers open quickly in one evening and last through the night, remaining open until dawn, then fall of the vine and die.

[Jesus said:] “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Soup, Soap, Hugs, Hope

This is a story about Brother Benno's (BBs) life-changing soup kitchen. Here, they say: “Our soup fills them up, Our soap cleans them up, Kay's hugs lift them up, and then a ray of hope starts, to shine into their difficult lives. A door has been opened for little miracles to happen."

Founded in 1983, everyone who works at Brother Benno’s is a volunteer. Even the Executive Director makes only $1.00 per year. All donations given to Brother Benno’s are used directly for the homeless. The organization’s administrative costs are covered by proceeds from a Thrift Store and furniture sales.

BBs operate ten facilities. In addition to the main Center at 3260 Production Avenue in Oceanside, CA, there are eight residences that provide housing for men and women in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, for homeless women and women with children, and for their "Servants of the Poor." The Thrift Shop is located at 3965 Mission Avenue in Oceanside.

The group, although founded by a Catholic brother, is now a non-denominational organization that reaches out to those in need. They are all about love, and about building bridges instead of walls.

"Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame, but for greatness, because greatness is determined by service." –Martin Luther King
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Solitude and Affliction - Our Best Assets

Isaiah proclaims that lowly and afflicted persons, like the homeless for instance, are the ones whom God approves. Posssibly Isaiah and many poor homeless know something that the “homefull” do not . . .

“Thus says the Lord:
‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being? declares the Lord.

“‘This is the one I approve:
The lowly and afflicted man - the one who trembles at my word.’” (Isaiah 66:1-2)

“[Being in] solitude shuts a man off from everything else and takes him back to his own nothingness. No outward show can help him anymore. Every superficial prop, every distraction, has gone. A person stands naked and defenseless before God, that is to say, in that poverty and weakness which are his only asset. Before solitude brings him to the encounter with God, it first teaches him his limitation, his abysmal insignificance.

“In a sense the effect of solitude is a secularizing one: it gives release from many false ideas and illusions, from myth of every kind. It teaches one how to be an ordinary human being, frail and in need of help.” Father Andre Louf, abbot emeritus, Cistercian Monastery, Mont-des-Cats, France.
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Spokane's Modern-day Saint Remembered

In September of 2008, Kevin Graman, writer for the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, WA reported on the passing of the city’s “saint,” Bruno D. Costa (photo), a volunteer and friend to Spokane’s homeless and elderly. He was 71.

“He had a soft spot for the poor [homeless] and veterans,” said his sister, Mira Anzalone, of Spokane.

In the summer of 2005, Costa was the subject of a front-page article in The Spokesman-Review about the lives he had touched through his giving-spirit with Catholic Charities.

“You’re supposed to do things for people,” Costa told the newspaper.

And he did. He drove senior citizens to doctor appointments and to grocery stores. He collected food donations for the homeless. He delivered meals to the homebound.

He was a driver for the House of Charity homeless shelter for many years.

“Even after he quit driving for us, he would come by and pick up all the empty milk crates and take them back to Safeway,” said Ed McCarron, House of Charity director. “He was inspired by the Lord to help people and was concerned for his fellow man.”

A devout Roman Catholic, he attended 6:30 a.m. Mass daily at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes before putting his faith to work, much of it carried out in his ’92 Ford Taurus.

“I appreciated him,” said Laura Faulkner, a resident of Cathedral Plaza, a downtown apartment complex for seniors. “We did depend on him, and sometimes we felt he was doing too much.”

Never married, Costa lived alone at Cathedral Plaza, where Italian and U.S. flags waved from his balcony. Costa was born Jan. 29, 1937, in Spokane, the third child of Italian immigrants Domenico and Antonietta Costa, and raised in Clayton, Wash.

After attending Gonzaga University, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany in the late 1950s.

He worked as a bartender for 17 years at the former Flamingo Restaurant in north Spokane.

After retiring nearly a quarter of a century ago, he devoted his life to caring for the poor.
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.

Ted Williams' Story

Ted Williams, a homeless man with a golden voice recently became a viral sensation on the internet after a reporter with The Columbus Dispatch nabbed video footage of him displaying a “Golden Radio Voice” while panhandling alongside the freeway in Columbus, Ohio. Ted’s YouTube video has been tearing up the Internet, garnering more than four million views. Now possible broadcast job opportunities are coming his way.

At one time, Williams had a promising career in radio, but he lost everything after becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol. The Brooklyn native — who has been living on the streets of Columbus, Ohio for four years — has been sober for the last two.

“I’m gonna be going to New York, hopefully this afternoon… I apologize. I’m getting a little emotional. I haven’t seen my mom in a great deal of time,” Williams said during an appearance on CBS’, The Early Show Wednesday. “She doesn’t believe [what’s been happening to me]. She’s 92. She lives in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. … One of my biggest prayers that I sent out was that she would live long enough for me to see me rebound or whatever, and I guess God kept her around and kept my pipes around to maybe just have one more shot that I would be able to say, ‘Mom, I did do it before,’ — I might pass away before her or whatever, but my dad didn’t get a chance to see this. But God is good.”
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.
Donate! To the poor homeless at http://servantsofthefather.org/donate_2_homeless or post checks to - Servants of the Father of Mercy, Inc., P.O. Box 42001, Los Angeles, CA 90042. All Donations are Tax Deductible

How often do you see or speak to a homeless person?

Sometimes, we "homeful" people become so busy with our day-to-day affairs that our paths may not easily cross that of a homeless person. A daily regimen of doing this or that may ultimately play into the age old saying, "out of sight, out of mind." So how are we doing in this regard?

Over the past couple of days, here at HIA, a new poll is launched. Please take a moment, scroll down to near the bottom of this main page and respond to the question . . . "How often do you see or speak to a homeless person?"

Blessings! and thank you for participating in all the HIA polls.
_________
Subscribe! in the top right column.
List yourself as a blog Follower, middle right column.

Great Things Come in Small Packages

Today, on the feast of the Epiphany, we celebrate the wealthy kings that journeyed from the East to pay homage to a poor, homeless baby, lying in a barn. In sharp contrast, although they were wealthy and even prepared very expensive "small packages" fitting for a King. To their dismay, upon their arrival, they discover Jesus - the King of Kings is actually a helpless baby, lying in a barn and clearly without a palace, an earthly kingdom or royal robes. Prophetically, these affluent kings instantly became a sign that one day all the kings of the earth will bow down before Jesus, the child infamously born in homelessness and utter poverty. Confounding the wise, we pray . . .

R Lord, every nation on earth will adore you!

Endow the king with your justice, O God,
the royal son with your righteousness.
May he judge your people in righteousness,
your afflicted ones with justice. R

May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness.
May he defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
May he crush the oppressor. R

May he endure as long as the sun,
as long as the moon, through all generations.
May he be like rain falling on a mown field,
like showers watering the earth.
In his days may the righteous flourish
and prosperity abound till the moon is no more. R

May he rule from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
May the desert tribes bow before him
and his enemies lick the dust.
May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores
bring tribute to him.
May the kings of Sheba and Seba
present him gifts.
May all kings bow down to him
and all nations serve him. R

For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight.
Long may he live! R

May gold from Sheba be given him.
May people ever pray for him
and bless him all day long.
May grain abound throughout the land;
on the tops of the hills may it sway. R

May the crops flourish like Lebanon
and thrive like the grass of the field.
May his name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun.
Then all nations will be blessed through him,
and they will call him blessed. R

Praise be to the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who alone does marvelous deeds.
Praise be to his glorious name forever;
May the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen and Amen. R (Psalm 72)

After a grueling 4,000 year delay from the first prophesy, the long-awaited Messiah has come. The glory of the Lord fills the earth, hidden in the person of a child of the poor. Our Salvation that took many millennia in coming, arrives as a “small Package” and unrecognizable to the world. It is the way of the incarnation.
_____________
Subscribe! to http://www.homelessinamerica.blogspot.com/ top right column.
Invite your family and friends to Subscribe!
Scroll down and vote in the polls.
List yourself as a blog follower, middle right column.