The Poor are Right in Your Own Homes

By

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The reason why the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers and Sisters and their co-workers is so beautiful is that it is a vocation for everyone - [all Christians]. All of us have been given the opportunity to be completely possessed by Jesus. The work He has entrusted to you and me is nothing more than putting our love for Him into action. What you do, I cannot do. What I do, you cannot do. But together, you and I can do something beautiful for God.

That is why Jesus made Himself the Bread of Life, to satisfy our hunger for God and for His love. I believe that was not enough for Him. Jesus made Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the destitute one who is dying. He said, “I was hungry, naked, sick, homeless. . , and you did it to Me.” That is why I say that the Brothers and Sisters of Charity are not simply social workers. They are contemplatives in the heart of the world because they are in contact with the body of Christ twenty-four hours a day.

The truth applies to each [Christian] also: in your homes and in every aspect of your lives. Jesus is still saying, “I was hungry.” In your homes you have a staving Christ, a naked Christ, a homeless Christ. Are you capable of recognizing Him in your own homes? Do you realize that He is right there in your midst?

How many times does a child run away from home because there is no one there to love him! How often it is that the elderly in the family are not at home. Instead, they are in nursing homes because no one has the time for them. The poor are right in your own homes. Are you aware of that?
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"Granny D"

“Aren’t we privileged to live in a time when everything is at stake, and when our efforts make a difference in the eternal contest between light and shadow, between togetherness and division? Between justice and exploitation? O, be joyful that you are a warrior in this great time! Will we rise to this battle? If so, we cannot lose, for rising up to it is our victory. If we represent love in the world, you see, we have already won.”

Excerpt from Doris “Granny D” Haddock’s 93rd birthday speech. Haddock walked across America at age 90 to call attention to the need for campaign finance reform and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire in 2004.

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What is Holiness?

By
Fr. Bobby Titco

Holiness is the perfection of charity. The more loving we are, the more holy we are. Holiness is not the result of kneeling the whole day inside the church. Sore knees, not holiness is what you get from kneeling the whole day inside the church. Holiness is the fruit of loving prayer and loving deeds combined.

When we are holy, the devil is afraid of us. Of course, he continues to tempt us so that we may fall into sin and be unholy. But strip the devil of his mask and you will see a frightened monster, cowing in the presence of a holy man.

If we want to free the world from evil, we must strive to be holy. We have to continue loving until our love is made perfect. The reason why there is so much evil in the world is because there is not enough love in the world. Because there is so much insincerity in our love, there is little holiness around us. Because there is little holiness around us there is so much evil in the world.

Let us love and we will be holy. Let us be holy by loving. No matter how small our corner in this world, provided we keep on loving, there will always be a corner in this world where evil cannot thrive. Each day, let us conquer evil. Each day, let us love. Each day, let us be holy.
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They Rumble Away in the Morning ...

Recently, Catherine Saillant, a Los Angeles Times writer reported on Ventura County's newest and most reluctant vagabonds – the “mobile homeless.” These are people who pass the night inside aging recreational vehicles at busy shopping mall parking lots. For privacy, they hang bed sheets in windows. They rumble away in the morning.

A knock on the door brings a barking or a wary face. They're embarrassed -- and tired of being told to move along. More than anything, they want to be left alone. "We've had some tough times," said Mike, an electrician parked with his girlfriend, Denise, in his 1973 RV at a Sam's Club in Oxnard. "We're just trying to make ends meet without getting harassed."

The couple said they've been cited by police three times for illegal overnight parking in the month since they left their Oxnard rental home after Denise lost her job as a home health aide.

Housing advocates, social workers and police in Ventura County all say they've seen an increase in the mobile homeless. Their counterparts elsewhere in California are seeing the same thing.

But municipal leaders worry about a backlash from angry residents who don't want strangers staying overnight near their homes. Business owners fear shantytowns on public and private lots.

The debate is playing out in Ventura County, where cities 12 miles apart have adopted starkly divergent policies. After hearing heated comment on both sides of the issue last month, Ventura city leaders decided that people no longer will be cited and fined $125 for sleeping in parking lots. Police in the beach town will now give a warning before issuing a citation.

In Camarillo, a 15-minute drive south on U.S. Highway 101, the reception was decidedly different. The City Council recently passed its first-ever ban on sleeping in vehicles, spurred by business owners complaining about RVs parked for days in shopping mall lots.

The city manager said it would be unfair to portray the well-tended bedroom community of Camarillo as coldhearted. "If someone is truly homeless, let us connect them to a resource that is safer than sleeping in your vehicle," Bankston said.

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"At the Present Time Your Hands are Empty"

On November 13, 1965, Conchita, one of four children who together were having on-going mystical encounters in Garabandal, Spain - alone in the pouring rain, Conchita received what was to be the last vision of the Blessed Mother in the village's mountainous pines of the Pyrenees. Conchita, content to meet once again Mary and the child Jesus in her arms, said this - what was to be among her last words in direct contact with the Blessed Mother ...

"Oh how happy I am when I see you. Why don't you take me with you now?" The Blessed Mother replied, "Remember what I told you on your saint's day: when presenting yourself before God, your hands must be filled with good deeds done for your brothers and for His glory. At the present time, your hands are empty." (Garabandal Journal, September/October 2005)
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Relationships are Never about Power

By
Wm. Paul Young

“Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to hold power over another is to choose to limit oneself – to serve. Humans often do this – in touching the infirm and sick, in serving the ones whose minds have left to wander, in relating to the poor, in loving the very old and the very young, or even in caring for the other who has assumed a position of power over them.”

Excerpt from Young’s book, The Shack, the book as become a #1 New York Times Bestseller. It has been said of The Shack: “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

Can You Imagine?

By
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

"On the day that [my uncle] President Kennedy was buried, my father Robert Kennedy, gave me a note that he had hand written that day. What he wrote to me did not convey fear, anger, or bitterness ... 'Dear Kathleen, you seemed to understand that Jack died and was buried today. As the oldest of the Kennedy grandchildren – you have a particular responsibility to John [my cousin] and Joe [my brother]. Be kind to others and work for your country. Love, Daddy.'

"Can you imagine in your own moment of unimaginable loss, reminding your child – to turn outward, not inward, to perform works of kindness and not of anger or revenge? It still stops my breath to think of him stealing away on that chaotic, dreadful day, for a quiet half-minute at his desk to make sure I would have this message with me always.

"My father’s message was very clear as he entrusted me with his sense of duty to family and country. This duty was built on a foundation of Christian teachings about service to others and social justice [as promoted by the priests and nuns who taught us]. [They taught] the good life did not come just from following the rules and resisting temptations – after all, Jesus did not follow the rules – but from taking our faith out of our houses of worship and putting it into practice."

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the eldest child of Robert F. Kennedy. She worked in the U.S. Department of Justice before serving two terms as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. She is the author of the book, "Failing America’s Faithful".

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A Christian cannot say, “I am a Social Worker”

by

Mother Teresa of Calucutta

Christ will not deceive us. That is why our lives must be woven around the Eucharist. The Christ who gives of Himself to us under the appearance of bread and the Christ who is hidden under the distressing disguise of the poor, is the same Christ. Because of this, we missionaries are not simply social workers. A Christian cannot say, “I am a social worker.” It isn’t just doing a little social work. If we Christian men and women believe that we are feeding a hungry Christ and clothing a naked Christ, we are contemplatives from the very center of our homes, our lives, and our world. That is why I define our Missionaries of Charity as contemplatives in the heart of the world twenty-four hours a day.

Christ has not deceived us. He has made this a condition for our future life in heaven. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me ... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:31-46)

When Jesus came into the world, He loved it so much that He gave His life for it. He wanted to satisfy our hunger for God. And what did He do? He made Himself the Bread of Life. He became small, fragile, and defenseless for us. Bits of bread can be so small that even a baby can chew it, even a dying person can eat it. He became the Bread of Life to satisfy our hunger for God, our hunger for love.

As if that were not enough, He Himself took on our human condition. He became hungry. He became naked. He became the poor one dying in our streets, so that we could satisfy our hunger for human love by loving Him. This is not something which is imaginary. It is not something out of the ordinary. God comes to us in human love so that we can love Him with our hearts. He wants us to love Him in those who are hungry, in those who are naked, in those who are homeless. This is what you and I are called to do. We must learn to pray steadfastly of this call.

The work that each one of you carries out on your families for those you love is an expression of your love for God. Love starts at home. For your love to be real, it cannot waver at home.

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A Friendly Reminder from Isaiah as to How to get one’s Self Heard by God in Heaven

Isaiah 58:1-14

1 Cry out in a loud voice and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; Tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins.

2 They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, Like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God.

3 "Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?" Lo, on your fast day you carry out your own pursuits, and drive all your laborers.

4 Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw. Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!

5 Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance: That a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

6 This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke;

7 Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.

8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am! If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;

10 If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday;

11 Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails.

12 The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; "Repairer of the breach," they shall call you, "Restorer of ruined homesteads."

13 If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the LORD'S holy day honorable; If you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice--

14 Then you shall delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
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Insight into the Fragility of Life

by

Kylyssa

The time I spent homeless gave me an insight into the fragility of life, the strength of the will to survive, the bright potential for human love and kindness and the cold, warped pain of human hatred. As a writer, it is almost inevitable that such experiences would color my words. Being homeless scarred my mind and body in ways that may never heal. Much of my writing inspired by my time as a homeless person deals with the after effects of my experiences.

Perhaps the hardest part about being homeless was being de-humanized. Before I lost my home, I was a cherished daughter, a fine student, a sister, a niece, a grandchild. I was "that shy neighbor girl" and "that smart kid" - but homelessness changed it all.

Sometimes, just for fun, teenage boys would harass me - shove me around and kick me. Just to pass some time. People would look away or cross the street to avoid me though I never begged. Cops would wake me with a toe to my ribs or the back of my head, never asking if I was OK, just poking me like a stray dog or a bag of garbage. Somehow, these small, everyday assaults on my person and dignity hurt more than the vicious attacks that left me hospitalized. Perhaps because they were always so casual, so frequent that they completely buried whoever I had been. I became a thing rather than a person.

So once bad then horrible things started happening to me, I justified the casual cruelties and brutal wrongs in my own head, too. I became detached, depressed, I viewed myself as a sub-human thing, a vile creature it was allowable to abuse. Things that if done to someone else would have filled me with righteous anger became OK, because it was just me they were happening to. People could do things to me that I wouldn't stand by and allow them to do to an animal. All because I had become, in my mind and theirs, nothing more than a monster, a beast that didn't even deserve life.

I still struggle with these feelings and you can see them clearly in my writing.

More by Kylyssa on the Internet at http://www.squidoo.com/inspired_by_homelessness
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