Second Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024
For the past two and a half years, Christ in the City missionaries have been attending our 12:05 weekday Masses. These young Catholics walk the streets of Center City befriending our homeless neighbors. This year there are 17 missionaries in Philadelphia, all visiting homeless people in Center City, befriending them in the name of Christ. Christ in the City missionaries give one or two years of their lives to living in community and making friends with homeless people. An essential element of their work is to pray with homeless people, to tell them that they are loved by God.
On November 17, Sophia Van Horne, Christ in the City Outreach Coordinator, talked to our Jack’s Yacs young adults about the Christian response to homeless people. Daily we encounter homeless people asking us for money. How should we respond? What is the right thing to do?
Sophia began by contrasting the Christian and secular perspectives on homelessness. For a Christian, homeless people, like all people, possess an inherent dignity as beloved of God, made in the image and likeness of God. The essential Christian response is to believe that homeless people are more than their problems, that they are of limitless worth in the eyes of God.
The ultimate question is not whether to give money or not, but how to affirm the dignity of the homeless persons whom we encounter. Ideally, we should talk to them, learn their names, ask about their stories. Handing a person a dollar is a quick transaction, but befriending a homeless person takes time. It is often easier to give money than to spend time.
It is not realistic to talk with every homeless person, but it is possible to befriend some homeless persons, the ones we see frequently or even daily. It may be good at times to buy someone food, or even to give money, but the most important thing, but the most important thing we can do is to affirm someone’s worth.
Homelessness is a sign of a disordered world, where people have nowhere to turn when life falls apart. Most of us are connected to family or friends who protect us in troubled times. Most homeless people lack connections with people who can help them and they often feel outcast and alone. Sometimes they have lost connection due to addictions or misconduct. We can’t solve all of their problems, but we can affirm their dignity; at least we can do this for some homeless people.
Contrast the Christian view of homeless persons with the secular one. In the secular view, homeless people are a problem, a nuisance. The question isn’t how can we affirm their intrinsic dignity, but how can we solve the problems that their existence causes for us. Some secular observers sympathize with the sufferings of homeless people, attributing their homelessness to mental illness, addictions or maybe even injustice. However, the approach is always based on a problem to be solved. There are many good agencies and people who try to help homeless people. Saint John’s Hospice is a local Catholic program to feed and house homeless people. These programs are good and they deserve our support. But as Christians, our first response is love; it is respect. Our response starts with the dignity of every person before God and we endeavor to treat people with respect.
