Brother Pio pulled up at my stoop in an admirable rusted and beat-to-hell early 80′s import. Knowing that St. Francis would be proud, I was proud too. I was confident and smiling as I hopped in the car with the two bald, bearded friars.

We headed east to the Padre Pio Shelter at their South Bronx friary (where the brothers live and work.) Every night sixteen men are brought to the shelter adjoining the friary. You know it isn’t a shelter, it is a home. Everything about the Padre Pio home is super-nice and cozy. It is twice as spacious and clean as my own apartment. So sixteen men–guests–are bused in from a different part of the city. For the next twelve hours, each is given responsibilities for cooking and cleaning. Together, they assure that the home stays clean and welcome for the next night’s guests.

The homeless shelters around the city are hell. The men stand a good chance to get robbed or beaten by other men at the shelter. Gangs control the shelters and everything that goes on inside of them.

We gathered around two long wooden tables for dinner and prayed as a family. There was no ego, no pride at this table. There were a few Franciscan brothers and sixteen homeless men. It startled me…I am so used to dealing with monstrous egos, and now there are all these people that have no reason to be big and act big. Each of those sixteen men knew that I knew they had no home. They live on the streets. (For all they knew, I remembered one of them asleep in the subway station.) The men knew they needed help, and they were humbly accepting it…like a child.

These are grown up little boys.

Earlier I was hanging out with the kids on my street, playing games, popping wheelies, and doing magic tricks. There is one little boy, barely two, named Omar. He is the quietest, sweetest, most huggable kid! Where will he be in thirty years? We have free will, and we have an opportunity to paint our own future. But what becomes of those whose external challenges and internal dispositions shackle them to poverty and a broken home? How does one escape the cycle? I see the generations of brokenness and poverty turning over all around my neighborhood. (All this stuff spinning in my head…I didn’t get enough sleep and I am struggling pulling together all the emotions and thoughts…)

Though I’ve worked in homeless shelters often, I’ve never had my heart tugged quite like last night. These men were grown up little boys: they still long to be loved, held, and rocked to sleep, just like my little friend Omar. It is easy to hug Omar because he is so helpless, innocent, and lovable. These men are not as easy to love; in the back of my head says, “They did this to themselves.” Does that make them any less worthy of being loved? No. Perhaps they are more worthy of love. Every day these men deal with the sneers and cringe of others as they rattle their paper cup, hoping for a few coins. Many people deny their existence, and stroll on the sidewalk, Gucci bags tucked under their arm.

:::

I am at a loss. I can not package these thoughts in words; I am in disarray. I will simply close with the words of Mother Teresa, whose entire life was dedicated to serving the poor. She is my hero, and I wish I could be more like her.

“When we touch the sick and needy, we touch the suffering body of Christ.” -Mother Teresa

“What the poor need, even more than food and clothing and shelter (though they need these, too, desperately), is to be wanted. It is the outcast state their poverty imposes upon them that is the more agonizing.”

“Let there be no pride or vanity in the work. The work is God’s work, the poor are God’s poor. Put yourself completely under the influence of Jesus, so that he may think his thoughts in your mind, do his work through your hands, for you will be all-powerful with him who strengthens you.”

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. In the slums we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile – Give them not only your care, but also your heart.”

“God has created us to love and to be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer–to know that he loves me, that I have been created for greater things.”