Soul Brothers

When Jesus went up the mountain, He sat down, and His disciples sat at His feet, and He began to teach, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". In the Old Testament, the poor are those without material possessions and whose confidence is in God. In Matthew, "in spirit" was added either to only include the devout poor or to extend the beatitude to all social ranks. Be that as it may, I'd like to personally share some experiences that exemplify what I think the Lord is saying to me.

While walking on the dirt streets in Pignon, Haiti at 4:00 am one morning, I encountered a group of shaggily dressed people heading toward church for mass. Inquiring, I learned that the 4:00 am mass was for the poor who had no acceptable clothing to wear in the daylight. People, poor and embarrassed, but not too proud to enter His House of Worship.

I noted an elderly lady, with no legs, begging in front of the San Francisco Cathedral in Quito, Ecuador. After a period of time, I followed her as she scooted along the floor into the vestibule of the church and observed her depositing the coins she had just received into the collection box for the poor.

As I placed a gift into the deformed hands of a fourteen-year-old beggar in Kathmandu, Nepal, I inquired about the grotesque, totally burned face she wore. The family was so poor; they turned her into a beggar by pouring hot oil over her.

One Christmas, while working as a Santa Claus helper at Murphy’s Department Store, a small child sat on my lap with eyes as wide as half dollars and when asked what he wanted for Christmas, he shared that his mother informed him that he could only have one gift this year. The gift he wanted was a coat for his mother. Later that afternoon, another poverty stricken child told me his mother forgot to unlock the door last year so he received nothing. This year she promised him the door would be unlocked.

When Juan's name was called, his father, who had carried him twenty miles and who had slept on the ground with him in front of the hospital in Mexicali, Mexico, rushed forward. The two-year-old child never made it off the operating room table (underlying congenital heart problem), however, had his cleft lip repaired. As we carried the small, homemade, white casket up the hill toward the mud hut, the whole family wept. After the burial, his mother thanked us and was happy that now Juan would "look like the other children in heaven".

While working in the Emergency Room at Mission Hospital in San Francisco, California, I noticed a broken-down, decrepit 78-year-old man wearing broken glasses. He was sitting on the floor clinging to a bag which contained all his earthly possessions. He had just been evicted from his one room flophouse apartment. He looked up at me and, as tears rolled down his cheeks, said, "I'm trying Doc. I pray God will take care of me."

AND WE COMPLAIN THE MICROWAVE DOESN'T WORK!!! The Old Boy on the mount was right on: "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven" who follow His Path, no matter their plight in life.

Dave Fogarty is a parishioner at St. John’s.

Question of the Week:
When have I seen Jesus in the poor? What is one thing I can do to live more in solidarity with the materially poor?