Lost Causes

He approaches us every Wednesday as we walk. The encounter begins with some form of harassment aimed at Brother Jim: throwing a football at his back, tugging at his denim habit, or asking repeated questions, perhaps. The projected toughness of this ten-year-old mirrors that of his only role models—the young men who control the streets of Back of the Yards, hardened on the outside to any childhood desire that was left unfulfilled.

Unfortunately, it is not the first or even the hundredth time that I have looked into the eyes of a child and seen the rage of a bitter old man. In yet another case of a child drowning in the system of poverty, violent neighborhoods, a drug-abusing parent, and failing schools, this young friend has learned defiance to survive. Refusing to listen to authority, he chooses instead to project an image of an independent soul who needs no one. He is protecting himself from the vulnerability of trusting adults who do not fulfill his needs.

However, he is not lost. Despite his defiance to adults, he still wants to be loved by them. Last Wednesday, when Brother Jim offered him a chapter book, his demeanor changed completely. The childish voice returned: “You gonna bring me a book next week?! I like adventure.” Cautiously optimistic, this boy is testing whether or not Brother Jim can be trusted.

We can see the trajectory of this child, and it does not look good. And yet his parents, teachers, and mentors feel lost at finding a solution that changes his path. Can you really be too far gone at age 10?

When have we decided that it is too late to act? States give up in 3rd grade; they track literacy test scores of this age group to plan prison populations. The practice is accurate enough to be useful. Leading psychologists give up as early as age 3, when they believe that certain behavioral development of the brain is set in stone.

When does BSL think it is too late to act? Never. On this same Wednesday walk, we stopped by one of our dear friends to catch up. A 50-year-old woman who admits her past includes prostituting, drugs, and squatting to survive, has turned her life around. In recent years, she has worked with the support of BSL to improve her health, take care of her home, and become a better community member. She now can be found helping a neighbor find a meal, mentoring the teenager upstairs, or offering part of her own link card to help our other friends in need. A “lost cause” is now a shining light of hope for her community.

Our instinct for action in ministry is to “do.” If there is not an immediate 3-step plan, we think the cause is lost. More often than not, though, people need us to “be.” Missions and ministries fail when they focus too much on doing. Creating plans for others to change their lives does not show love; it shows control and conditionality. Be. Be present, be ready to help, and be there when people make mistakes. Love unconditionally, and create the space people need to change themselves when they are ready. Change cannot be a pre-requisite for love. Love has to come first.

The story of most evil in the world has started with a child who was ignored when he or she cried out for love. Do we learn this lesson, or allow history to repeat itself with the youngest generation of the poor? Will you give your love to those who are perceived as lost? Despite your fears or hopelessness, it is the only tool you need to act.

Megan Sherrier, Brothers and Sisters of Love, a Catholic ministry working with street gangs.

A Palm Card

St. Edmunds Church. Oak Park, IL

I knew at once he was a panhandler. The slightly disheveled look, the bulging satchel over his shoulder, the tattered anorak covering multiple layers of mismatched clothing were all definite clues, but it was the strategic location that he had selected to ply his trade that confirmed it. Carefully positioning himself at the base of the steps leading up to the doors of Saint Edmunds Church gave him a tactical advantage over the small but potentially rewarding group arriving for the 8:30AM Mass. Close to the traffic light he also controlled the cross-walk population that sought to gain access to the east side of Oak Park Ave.

It was the usual spiel. He was homeless, had spent the night sleeping outside because the PADS shelter was full again. He needed some money so that he could get breakfast and potential shelter from the cold and threatening wet November day that was bringing with it a warning foretaste of winter.

I remembered the cautions in the newspaper. Giving cash to panhandlers in Oak Park was now officially frowned on. It encouraged them to maintain their current life style and inhibited them from seeking the help that they needed to solve their underlying problem. They were likely to spend the money on drink and drugs – money that would be much better spent by the numerous charities that were in the business of improving the sad plight that had befallen these poor souls. Besides, giving money would only encourage more panhandling which was not the image that the Village wished to convey at this time of year – not good for business during the holiday season.

As I recalled, the recommendation by the village authorities was to give him a palm card – a pre-printed card that contained all of the information that he would need to obtain help – with the address and phone numbers of all of the local agencies that could help him. I had no such card with me, but I started to tell him of the locations of the various agencies that I knew about.

The Oak Park palmcard

As I continued to talk, it started to rain. He listened carefully to me telling him why I would not give him money to buy the food he needed. Why I would not allow him shelter from the rain that was slowly but steadily soaking through his tattered anorak.

All at once I was filled with a deep sense of shame. I was about to go into the Church for Mass. I professed that I was a Christian – a Catholic. That I believed that we were all made in the image and likeness of God. That it is in the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed that we fully see His image. That we are called on to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and welcome the stranger.

When I gave him the five-dollar bill, he thanked me profusely. He told me that he was ashamed to be poor and homeless. That he was an immigrant from Latvia. That he could speak four languages and had recently lost his job as a translator. I suddenly realized that it was not for me to judge whether he was telling the truth or not. I finally saw him for what he really was – a poor soul. He was asking me to help him and I had the ability to do so then and there.

As he tried to tuck away the money, I noticed his hands. Red from the cold with swollen knuckle joints, he was having difficulty folding the bill to place it in his pocket.  It was clear that he needed warm gloves far more than I did. At first he refused my offer, saying that he could not accept the needed warmth and protection. When he finally did accept my gloves, his hand were so stiff from the cold that I had to help him get the gloves on his near frozen hands.

As I turned to climb the steps he suddenly began to cry. He hugged me with his newly gloved hands and told me that nobody believes him when he tells his story. He assured me that it was all true.  That all he wants is a chance to make it through this difficult patch in his life. That what happened to him could happen to anybody.

Are we to deny help to those who – for whatever reason – need it? Am I to sit in judgment of every person who asks for my help? To give them a Palm Card when what they need are gloves? Are we to focus on the systemic problem of the injustice of poverty and homelessness at the expense of denying a simple act of immediate charity?

As I entered the Church, it occurred to me that I had given him his Palm Card after all.

John Barrett is a member of St. Edmunds Parish in Oak Park, IL.  John is active with the peace and justice committee at St. Edmund, represents St. Edmund on the  Vicariate IV Justice Month Planning Committee, and serves on the Office for Peace and Justice – Justice Education Committee for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

BODILY MATTERS

600.  600 lives.  600 young  lives.  Dead.  That’s the low estimate of the number of young people killed in the city of Chicago since 2008.  Tragedy?  Yes.  Disgrace? You bet!  Unjust?  Not even close.

Bodies count; bodies matter.  They matter because God made all of creation, especially the human person – soul AND body! – good.  They matter because God freely decided to become embodied Himself in Jesus Christ.  In the Incarnation, God not only “empties” himself but also ennobles the human body, elevates it, and reveals its transcendent dignity. 

Raphael's "Transfiguration"

Two Sundays ago, the second of Lent, we got a glimpse of this dignity.  In Mark we hear of Jesus’ body being “transfigured before” Peter, James, and John, pointing to what will be Jesus’ glorified and resurrected body on Easter.  The story ends with the witnessing Apostles “questioning what rising from the dead meant.”  Clearly they knew something extraordinary had just been revealed to them, but they had no idea what!  At least not yet.

Last Sunday, Lent’s third, we hear again of the bodily significance of Jesus.  Following his cleansing of the Temple in John, members of the Jerusalem Jewish community ask Jesus for a sign.  “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’”  Confused and shocked, those around the Lord disbelieve; his answer is nonsense, “a stumbling block” as Paul puts it in the second reading.  Then we hear: “But he was speaking about the temple of his body.  Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.”  Jesus’ own disciples “came to believe” because of his body, the new Temple and center of our worship. 

"Jesus," Hagia Sophia (Mosiac)

Jesus’ transfiguration and resurrection both confirm his identity as Messiah and Lord and affirm the goodness and dignity of the human body, ourbodies. 

We ignore this at our own peril. 

Any attempt to deny the dignity of every life, every body, from conception to natural death, is a denial of the full significance of Jesus Christ as our crucified and risen Lord.  Conversely, every authentic defense of human life and dignity testifies to that significance and calls others to do the same. 

So testify with me on April 2^nd, the Monday of Holy Week, as the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Office for Peace and Justice support the CROSS Walk of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago.  Use your body to affirm the dignity of more than 600 young Chicagoans who have died before their time.  Walk with me from St. James Cathedral, to Daley Plaza, to Old St. Pat’s, to Stroger Hospital in a liturgical procession for life and dignity. 

Walk with me but not for me.  Walk for Mark Watts, Anton Sanders, Valentin Bahena, Omar Vargas, Christian Peggs, Cory Campbell, Devonte Pippen, Nicholas Camacho, Kurtis Stanton, Artemio Silva, Shaquille L. Rush, Samuel Patterson, Linear Caballero, and hundreds of other young people and their families and friends.  I don’t know any of them personally, but that doesn’t matter.  What I do know: they matter and can no longer speak for themselves.

Bring your friends and family, gather a group from church, or come alone.  Register online today.

Scott McLarty is the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Chains

Megan Sherrier

Strolling down the sidewalk, the poverty is palpable. Boarded-up homes are more common than not, garbage overcomes the front lawns where children play, and multiple families all huddle under the same small roof. The presence of gangs is marked by t-shirt memorials hanging from fences and graffiti murals plastered to the sides of buildings.

Back of the Yards, Chicago

At the same time, there is a presence of community that suburban neighborhood councils would envy. Neighbors are out on front porches conversing as their children ride bikes and play in front of their homes. People who pass on the street greet one another and swap their feelings on the weather, politics, and whether or not the White Sox have a chance this upcoming season.

 

“Hey! You got any of them chains?!”

The familiar inquiry interrupts our thoughts as we walk in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The question is really asking for a rosary, which creates for Brother Jim and his fellow walkers an open door through the barrier that divides them from the residents.

Conversations begin by people asking about the rosaries, but end in a myriad of ways. Last week we had the privilege of praying over a teenager about to give birth to a daughter, visiting with a woman grappling with her son’s impending court case, and having a lengthy conversation with a resident originally from Cabrini Green, where the city has recently torn down the high-rise projects and relocated many of its residents.

In this final conversation, this man swapped stories with Brother Jim of common friends he had with Brothers and Sisters of Love, those living and those who became victims of the streets. He spoke about his own personal chains—unemployment, staying out of trouble and out of jail, and dealing with the surge of gang activity picking up in the area.

Upon first glance, the list of problems chaining this community seems endless: the prevalence of gang violence, teenage pregnancy, poor education, and housing concerns barely scratches the surface of the complexities weighing people down.

However, in speaking with community residents there seems to be a common desire for an exchange. By speaking about their own chains, they lay them down in hopes of picking up what the rosary symbolizes—becoming chained to the hope that Christ offers. In this type of chain, they find a reason to endure.

It seems as though in life we must be chained to something, anchored in a path that directs us one way or another. It begs the question: To what do we asked to be chained?

Do we seek the Kingdom of God where we experience Jesus’ presence among the poor the vulnerable, the suffering in our weak economy? Or do the ways of the world chain us to the fears of self-preservation?

Let us spend this week reflecting on the chains that dominate our lives, focusing on which ones we need to lay down in order to bond to the hope of Christ for the mission of our world and endure in God’s love.

Megan Sherrier works for Brothers and Sisters of Love, a Catholic ministry working with street gangs.

Catholic Social Teaching and Job Security

Catholic social teaching is very clear about the dignity of the worker (Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church, #301) rights and exploitation of workers, (#158,  302, 321), and just wages (#301).  

Recently ARISE Chicago Worker Center was in the news, fighting for the rights of 136 former employees of Rolf’s Patisserim.  Without warning and in clear violation of labor law, this Chicago bakery laid off all of its 136 workers, denying them severance pay, vacation days due, and issuing final checks that bounced. 

As a Catholic parishioner in the Archdiocese of Chicago I was proud to know that not only could my heart could go out to Rolf’s workers, but ARISE Chicago, partially funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, was standing with them, connecting them with attorneys and making sure their case wouldn’t leave the public eye.

It is hard to imagine what these workers must be going through, emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually.  I am comforted to know that the mission of ARISE is faith, labor and action. When blatant injustice occurs, many times action trumps faith and then leaves many casualties.     

The story of King Saul and David from the Old Testament (Sam 17-18) helps me spiritually reflect on job security.  As you may remember, King Saul believed his own job was on the line after David slew the Philistine, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands,” cried the women of Israel in ecstasy.

Jealousy and anger filled Saul’s heart.  David was getting all the props and needed to be stopped!

A fascinating but obscure person in this story is Saul’s son Jonathan, who serves as a go-between between the recognition-deprived Saul and the vulnerable David.  Drawing on personal and issue-based authority, Jonathon both protects David and convinces the king to change his mind and let David live.

As the Rolf Bakery saga continues to unfold, I have become increasingly impressed with ARISE Chicago, which like Jonathon, has been working on both sides of the isle, protecting the workers and their rights and at the same time trying to talk common sense with their former employer. 

Jonathon represents, in my opinion, an excellent role-model for peace and justice leaders.  Any faith-based fight for structural change must resist the traps of anger and resentment.

Like Jonathon, we are privileged to role-model being advocates for the vulnerable and speaking truth to authority. 

Tom Howard is the Program Director for Justice Education in the Office for Peace and Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Who Are We? (Part 2): The Divine Doctor

The following continues where my last post leaves off:

So we are all born a unity of body and soul, but our soul is not functioning according to its original design; it is stained or injured.  We all know that injury demands a doctor’s treatment, but our soul cannot be treated as our body.  The soul requires a different sort of doctor and different sort of medicine.  In Luke 5:30-32, in reply to the Pharisees and scribes asking him why he dines with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus says ““Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.  I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”  Jesus the Physician: definitely a different sort of doctor. 

Jesus Healing the Man with a Withered hand (Mark 3:1-6)

Rather than making house calls, Jesus calls sinners to repentance.  In other words, he invites sinners to himself so that he might give them medicine.  We call this medicine Grace.  Here Jesus becomes the answer to Jeremiah’s wail: “Is there no balm in Gilead, no healer there?  Why does new flesh not grow over the wound of the daughter of my people?”  (Jer. 8:22)  His Grace is medicinal, a healing balm for the soul which causes “new flesh” to grow.  Of course, this “new flesh” is not material, but spiritual.  It brings the intellect and will back into working order.  But this recovery cannot be had without our willingness to recognize our own wounded-ness and then seek out the doctor.  We have to courageously admit our need and say with Augustine to God, “See, I do not hide my wounds; you are the physician and I am sick; you are merciful, I in need of mercy.” (Confessions X.28, 39)

Wounds, however, of the body or soul, do not simply heal as if the damage could be erased – scar tissue develops and the effects of the original injury remain.  This scar tissue of the soul is given the name concupiscence, defined by the Catechism as “an inclination to sin” and “metaphorically, ‘the tinder for sin.’”  (CCC 1264)  From here flows an entire justification for the Sacraments, but that’s for another post!  Next time I will focus on the human body and its theological implications.  We already affirmed the goodness of the body (it exists so it is good), but what of its relation to the soul and to other bodies?  If the body is good, how should that inform how we treat our own and other’s bodies?

Scott McLarty is the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago

Who Are We? (Part 1)

Scott McLarty

This will be the first in a series of posts from me on some fundamental elements of Catholic Social Teaching (CST).  I hope you stick with me in this process, offering your comments and questions.    

Before I get into specific ideas expounded in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, I would like to cover a few important assumptions at work in all of CST.  In the form of questions they are: What is the human person and who is Jesus Christ?  Getting the basic answers to these questions right (i.e. having a good anthropology and a good Christology) will go a long way toward getting CST right.

Close up "Creation of Adam" - the hands of God (right) and Adam (left). Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel.

So, who are we?  What does it mean to be human?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) gives us a fundamental anthropology that is the fruit of reflection upon scripture, rooted in Genesis 1-3. From Genesis we get some important truths: we are made/created good, by God, in His image.  Though God desires our eternal beatitude, by our own doing we “fall” away from him and our happiness, suffering the consequences of living “East of Eden:” sin and death.  Let’s stop here for a moment.  This story probably sounds so familiar that its massive consequences might be elusive.  If we are made/created, then we did not create ourselves, nor did our parents, grandparents, etc. create themselves.  Our ultimate source and ground cannot be found “within” (though we must cultivate an inner life).  Our ultimate source of being, the One who gives us, and all that exists, being (and is being itself), is God.  We learn from John that this source of being is love.  We are not manufactured by God, given being as a machine is given parts, but loved into an existence that is fundamentally good.  Genesis 1 repeats this over and over, culminating in the divine affirmation that the whole of creation is “very good!” (Gen. 1:31) 

As St. Augustine pithily puts it in his Confessions (VII.12,18) “everything that exists is good.”  But human being are not just good, we are also made in the “image and likeness” of God.  We have a special and unique resemblance to the God who is love.  As divine image-bearers, Tradition tells us, we have been endowed with both bodies and immortal souls (more on our bodies later).  Our souls, because they are not material, do not have parts.  They have what are sometimes called “elements,” “capacities,” “operations,” or “activities,” two in particular: the intellect and the will. 

The intellect is our ability to know the Good, the True, and the Beautiful; the will is our ability to do the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.  Before the Fall our intellect and will worked in perfect harmony – we knew the Good and did it.  After the Fall, and we all know this from experience, often we do not know the Good and even when we do, we often don’t do it.  Our intellect and will are not destroyed or eliminated, but they are darkened and injured, unable to work as their creator intended.  As Blessed John Paul II affirms in the introduction to his encyclical letter Veritatis splendor, “no darkness of error or of sin can totally take away from man the light of God the Creator.”  Human beings, even under the conditions of original sin, retain intellects and wills capable of discerning and doing the Good, the True, and Beautiful in the most basic ways. 

Above is “Part 1” of this post.  When I realized I was getting close to 1,000 words I decided to slice this sucker in two.   “Part 2” will be posted later this week. 

Scott McLarty is the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice of the Archdiocese of Chicago.