NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE J ustin always seems shocked that I remember his name. It’s such a small thing, but it sure seems to mean a great deal to him. He’s homeless, but he says being homeless in New York is much better than being homeless other places. He tells me about the coffee place that always shares caffeine and sandwiches. I run into him outside a supermarket — I suspect I’m far from the only one who picks up an item or two at his request. But the more important thing is the name — he says people talk with him here. They care about him, and want to know where he sleeps. It’s not the ideal, but he knows he is not alone.
Just after being released from a hospital, Pope Francis in his Palm Sunday homily seemed to be talking about Justin and the rest of us walking about in our busyness. He was talking about the tremendous love that Christ demonstrated in his Crucifixion. “Why did it have to come to this? He did it for us. There is no other answer. For us. Brothers and sisters, today this is not merely a show. Every one of us, hearing of Jesus’s abandonment, can say: for me. This abandonment is the price he paid for me. He became one with each of us in order to be completely and definitively one with us to the very end. He experienced abandonment in order not to leave us prey to despair, in order to stay at our side forever. He did this for me, for you, because whenever you or I or anyone else seems pinned to the wall, lost in a blind alley, plunged into the abyss of abandonment, sucked into a whirlwind of so many ‘whys’ without an answer, there can still be a hope: Jesus himself, for you, for me.”
I don’t know how Justin does it. There are women, too, I encounter on the city streets. I can’t imagine that reality. I’m amazed by the relationships that seem to be a source of joy. All I can think about is the rats on the streets.
In his homily, Francis said: “In the hour of his abandonment, Jesus continued to trust. At the hour of abandonment, he continued to love his disciples who had fled, leaving him alone. In his abandonment he forgave those who crucified him. Here we see the abyss of our many evils immersed in a greater love, with the result that our isolation becomes fellowship.” This is what I frequently encounter.
Francis remembered a German man who recently died on the streets of Rome. He would sleep by one of the colonnades outside St. Peter’s Basilica. The story of Christianity is the story of that man not being alone and forgotten.
Jesus, Pope Francis said, “wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who resemble him most, those experiencing extreme suffering and solitude.” He emphasized: “Today, dear brothers and sisters, their numbers are legion. Entire peoples are exploited and abandoned; the poor live on our streets and we look the other way; there are migrants who are no longer faces but numbers; there are prisoners who are disowned; people written off as problems.”
That’s what Justin always seems to convey: gratitude for all those who do not see him as a problem or a nuisance on the street. Don’t give me any credit — I don’t know how to help Andrea, who has a schtick and is fairly aggressive about it. Or the man on the same street whose favorite word begins with “f” when you don’t have money on you and try to engage in conversation instead. I pray that by not ignoring him there is some grace added to his day. He’s an invitation to trust that he has a Savior who surely isn’t me.
Pope Francis makes news not so much for his homilies as for his remarks on planes and for occasional scares about his health. But reading his homilies could help remind us why faith is critical, what Christianity is all about, and why it is a blessing when lived.
Holy Week this year brought with it news of abominations — a report out of Baltimore about abuse and coverups. I had a difficult conversation recently with an Uber driver in Boston about the history of the Catholic Church there. He was convinced that there was something evil in the core of Church teaching that made men do such things. That’s the rot! The demon of abuse is a counter-witness that keeps people from the love of God.
In his homily, Francis said: “Countless other abandoned persons are in our midst, invisible, hidden, discarded with white gloves: unborn children, the elderly who live alone: They could perhaps be your father or mother, your grandfather or grandmother, left alone in retirement homes, the sick whom no one visits, the disabled who are ignored, and the young burdened by great interior emptiness, with no one prepared to listen to their cry of pain.”
It would be a crime to ignore his words. In Canada right now, assisted suicide has become a norm. For people like Justin. For doctors recommending it, homelessness is a reason. So is old age. Have we forgotten the people who died in the early days of Covid because they had been warehoused? And there are always the unborn — more forgotten than ever now that pharmacies are becoming abortion clinics.
Whatever we believe, there is a deeper love that these holy days call us to. If we try to live it, we might just give someone hope.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.