A few months ago I was asked to share with McQuaid middle school my experiences working at Saint Joe’s. It was my pleasure to spend the morning with the students and faculty as we marched through Rochester, gathered vital winter donations, and celebrated mass together in our parking lot. Below is the story I shared with them:
Hello and good morning McQuaid Jesuit students, faculty, and parents. My name is Fig Ruiz and I am a Catholic Worker at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality in Rochester. I want to thank you all on behalf of St Joes and all of our guests for inviting us here and especially for the donations of these cold weather items. These simple objects like jackets, socks, hats, and gloves that we take for granted are vital for those without homes and with limited transportation. Being a native to the south myself I am constantly surprised by the strength of those I work for in dealing with these rough Rochester winters. Since moving from Virginia to Rochester I have fallen in love with the area and the people, yet I have also had to face a brutal reality. Poverty is an endemic severe problem for this area, even now in 2015. It truly warms my heart to see the McQuaid community reach out and see the example being set by the young guys in front of me. To take action and go to a homeless shelter, to see a soup kitchen for yourselves, and to celebrate mass and be in communion with the poorest and most marginalized in Rochester is a radical step to facing these societal ills and making a stand for the real sanctity of these people.
Firstly, before we leave I would like to give you some background on the Catholic Worker movement and how it has impacted me.
To be a Catholic Worker means many things. For one it is to be a part of a vibrant and living spiritual tradition that began in the thirties. It was started by a young journalist named Dorothy Day, now recognized as a Servant of God in the church, and also by a French philosopher named Peter Maurin. They began publishing a newspaper called “The Catholic Worker” that promoted the biblical promise of justice and mercy. Before long they opened up a “house of hospitality” where they put their beliefs into action and tended to the homeless, hungry and forsaken directly. They started a movement that is committed to nonviolence and practiced voluntary poverty and the works of mercy as a way of life. This history is something that I feel around me each day. I live in a home where Peter Maurin had slept, and the trials I face in this work are those that have been experienced time and time again, detailed in the writings of Catholic Workers that came before me.
In the decades since, the catholic worker movement has protested injustice, war, and violence of all forms. Here in Rochester, we have St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality and the Bethany House which are two of the 228 Catholic Worker communities in the United States and around the world.
On a more practical and day to day level, being a Catholic Worker means waking up in a 165 year old building, being a part of a community that has been around for 74 years, and doing work that I love to do. I have the support of a community of loving people that enable me to make the best use of my talents. I live where I work, and instead of clients and staff, we have guests and hosts. The community is composed of both. This has opened up new venues for me to do meaningful work and to truly deepen my spirituality. Whether I am cooking in the kitchen, fixing up the computers, trying to help people settle differences, or simply giving someone the time to tell me their story, I am blessed by having the space to live my faith.
The pill is also known as Vitamin V, the Blue Pill, http://amerikabulteni.com/category/haberler/new-york/ cheapest cialis, cialis Day-to-day can help to take care of erectile dysfunction / impotence efficiently and quickly. Don’t expect your hair to be deep black and thick by consuming this drug but to get firm penis, a man should be mentally prepared for it. order cheap viagra Who else not expects to get the sturdy and enduring buy viagra pill erection. If you’re a woman lacking in sex drive, sexual dysfunction, or changes to ejaculation. this page levitra on line How to live ones faith is a question we all need to ask ourselves. For everyone it will be different depending on our passions, our talents, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit we have been blessed with. But we are not left without a plan. Jesus explains it well in what has come to be known as the Works of Mercy. In Mathew several are enumerated not just as an ideal, but a condition for salvation. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and visit the imprisoned. We all understand that these are good things to do, for sure. Yet society as a whole never asks these things of us. We are simply encouraged to tend to our own affairs and trust that everyone is getting what they deserve. The truth of the matter is that these necessities are preconditions for people to truly be themselves, for people to have dignity, and they cannot be taken for granted. They are things that many do without. In our lives we try to navigate being in the world, yet not of the world. Faith is something that is often scheduled or simply relegated to Sundays. In lieu of burning bushes and parted seas and other grand ovations, how are we supposed to know God? Scripture tells us that we are all created in God’s image and we are only able to love God insomuch as we love our neighbor. It is through these works that we can have truly mystical lived faith. My first exposure to the Catholic Worker was a good friend telling me that we cannot know ourselves in a vacuum. We rely on others to show us our true selves. By giving someone what they need to be themselves, to have that dignity, you can then better know yourself. I know for myself, poverty was never a part of my life. Without ever going to sleep hungry, being moved from shelter to shelter, or not knowing how to clothe ourselves for winter, it is hard for us to think in concrete terms about these experiences.
A third of Rochester lives in poverty. Most children in Rochester live in poverty. Rochester is leading the nation in extreme poverty. People end up in these situations for uncountable reasons, from abuse and neglect, to brain injuries, to predatory loans and being exploited. We have a crisis on our hands. It is up to us to show this city, and show society what it means to be Catholic. What use is our faith if not to heal this hurt? What good is our faith? Are we people who go about our business or do we truly believe that we are all the Sons and Daughters of Christ? What are the implications of that? How do we treat people when we truly believe that they are made in the image of God? What does it mean to love your neighbor? In the book of James we are told “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead”. This is not a condemnation but an observation. Faith is exciting! The works of mercy are a real practical method for understanding St. Francis’ love for poverty. Through these works we can share in Thomas Merton’s passion when he says “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.” A vision that caught him off-guard on a street corner.
I have visited the tents of homeless people many times. I have seen the campsite just down Elmwood street where a man died in June and his meager possessions laid for months, probably still there. Felt the scars of heroin addicts’ arms. Attended funerals of men with no homes. Heard women explain why they turned to prostitution. Seen young children waiting in soup kitchen lines. A luxury of my work is that I need not remove myself from these people with a professional distance. In fact, it is vital that I engage with them personally and many are dear friends of mine.
I left the faith around your age, and one of my oldest friends from that time asked me “Why Catholic Worker? I could do things for the poor and do good work without it?” To which I replied, “I couldn’t.” It is in prayer and communion that I am sustained. Our faith is an asset and God can help us to do things that we simply never could on our own. I couldn’t love my guests how I do without my contemplations on how they compose the mystical body of Christ.
During World Youth Day in 2013, Pope Francis said “What do I expect as a consequence of the Youth Day? I expect a mess.” He challenges us to make a make a mess in the streets, in the diocese, the parishes, the schools, the institutions. We should be vocally intolerant of a society that doesn’t dignify human beings. I encourage you all to pray for the courage to call out injustice. As Dorothy Day said “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system.” So let us reject that system. In addressing congress recently, Pope Francis counted Dorothy Day among three other great Americans, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King Jr. He said of her “Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.” Her many arrests were a testament to how society responds to these radical notions, just as Jesus’s cross was. In the face of this, we must be steadfast and know that “Success, as the world determines it, is not the final criterion for judgments. The most important thing is the love of Jesus Christ and how to live His truth.” Today, I’m proud to stand alongside these many men of action before me.
On our way to St Joe’s, let it be known we aren’t a mere walk-a-thon, but a march against poverty. Today we are all Catholic Workers. Thank you.
