This
is what all the saints did and still do today.
They
understand the wisdom of Jesus, his law of love, and put it into action in
their lives.
Blessed
Mother Teresa once said, “Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come as lessons.”
Nobody
knows this better or shows this better than a modern day saint who has taken a seemingly
hopeless culture of lawbreakers in his hometown of Los Angeles and lovingly shaped
them into law lovers, law livers and law givers.
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Gregory
Boyle is the Founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries. Gregory Boyle is also Fr. Gregory Boyle, a
Jesuit priest.
I’m
currently reading his book “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.”
It’s
a story about his experiences in ministry on the tough streets of the City of
Angels. Boyle Heights is the gang
capital of the world. I think it is no
coincidence Fr. Boyle has run the nation’s largest gang-intervention program there
for 21-years.
He
encounters about 12-thousand people a year at Homeboy Industries. Eight-thousand
are current gang members, “hailing from 700 different gangs in L.A. County.”
“It’s
a rehab center where gang members seek to redirect their lives.” It’s an oasis in the desert. It’s the Kingdom embodied here on earth.
His
ministry has been described as impacting “the human life-cycle of fall / grace / redemption
/ repeat -- again and again.”
His
greatest gift is sharing God’s unconditional love with what many call the most
unlovable people on the planet: street
gang members.
Every
day he meets with and ministers to new, young men and women, slowly rescuing
them from the clutches of deadly gang life with the promise of a job and a
community.
Fr.
Greg calls this a “particularly disparaged sub-grouping of the poor whom (he
has) been privileged to walk.”
Homeboy
Industries has built into its logo a slogan:
“Jobs Not Jail” and uses it as its
motto, its clarion call, its promise.
He’s
in the business of justice and mercy.
And he’s peddling hope on the hopeless streets of L.A.
These
are the "poor in spirit" Matthew’s Gospel speaks of today.
Father
Boyle is meek, merciful, comforts those who mourn (he’s buried nearly 150 gang
members), is clean of heart, hungers and thirsts for righteousness, but most
of all, Father Boyle is a peacemaker. He
is truly Blessed.
Father Boyle describes his life on
the streets as snapshots of personal stories where “you discover the shape of
God’s heart and you discover a common sense of humanity.”
He strives to “create a sense of
community of kinship so that God might recognize it.”
Father
Boyle thinks our culture spends too much time demonizing the gang world instead
of helping gang members to realize “we belong to each other” and help them to
climb out of the pits of hell on earth.
He says there’s no such thing as “us and them, only us.”
This
is what the Beatitudes call us all to do, each in our own unique way. Be a saint peddling Jesus’ law is
love.
Social scientists say young people
join gangs “because they feel hopeless, because they are running from
something, because they want a family, because they want someone to belong to
and something to be a part of.”
Yet, Father Boyle takes a hopeless
life and turns it into a hope-filled life, with amazing results.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguYh1haTbgYhYs4rQKlVOqfFACAO5wGkylPD406XDR-PmgZ-ZRt-_kWZo77Yp9iKtg0A3XsgTzcKyTXis2wYYRyx5oKhvMDBW1wzyRedPMLTo9-UgH9n7yB6jB1y1SMNZKhS2NGTsT0BE/s320/father-greg-boyle%5B1%5D.jpg)
Father Greg told recent UCLA
graduates: they should “be concerned
less with the bottom-line and more (concerned) with those who line the bottom. Inch yourself out to the very edges and the
margins … dismantle barriers that exclude and … widen the circle of compassion
so that the poor and the powerless and voiceless might find themselves included. And so you stand with those whose dignity has
been denied and you stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear
and you stand on great and fortunate days with the easily despised and the
readily left out. You stand even with
the demonized so the demonizing will stop and with the disposable so the day
will come when we stop throwing people away.”
I’ve posted this entire commencement
speech, along with an interview with Father Greg Boyle from the Dr. Phil show
and other videos on my website: deacondennis.com.
UCLA School of Nursing Commencement Address - 2011
Dr. Phil Interview
Homeboy Industries interviews
Part One
Part Two
I
encourage you to see what a modern day saint looks like.
I’m
sure there are current gang members out there who insult Fr. Greg and persecute
him and utter every kind of evil against him.
But rejoice and be glad, because great is his reward.
He’s
saving men and women from an early, violent death on the mean streets of L.A. He’s helping them to put God in the center of
their lives. He’s saving souls one kid
at a time.
It has been written, “The Beatitudes
ask everything of us. But they also
comfort those who sorrow and infuse the weary with hope. They inspire the downtrodden and offer
visions of a world where our hunger for justice is satisfied and mercy reigns.”
Father Gregory Boyle and his Homeboy
Industries ministry are a living embodiment of the Beatitudes right here on
earth in our present time. He is truly
Blessed.
And
Father Greg is both a blessing in our world today and a lesson in our lives. He opens our eyes to a wider
reality where Jesus reigns and we live in peace and harmony with each other. No matter our race, no matter our social
status, no matter any false distinction society might use to separate us.
Indeed
rejoice and be glad.
Go to Homeboy Industries website
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