____________________________________________________
When we walk in the Spirit of truth, we walk without fear.
Back when I was working with Operation NightWatch doing homeless
street ministry here in downtown Seattle we would venture into “The Jungle” to
bring Jesus to the darkest place in the city and to some of the most
marginalized people in Seattle.
“The Jungle” was a large area of homeless encampments under
and around I-5, south of the city. It stretched for miles, and at the time
had 400 residents. It was a dangerous place. A shooting there in 2016 claimed
two lives.
On the last time I was there, we met a woman who was shot during the ordeal. The bullet is still lodged in her spine. She had just taken off her back brace and left her walker behind a few days before. She admitted she still falls navigating the steep hillsides around “The Jungle.”
Her sad, timid smile lit up her face in the darkness as she
described the events of that night. As someone who spent 20-years
working at a fire department, she had been trained to run toward danger instead
of away from it.
Instead of running away from the sound of gunfire that fateful
night, she came running toward the bullets and ended up spending a month in the
hospital as a result.
She was still living in “The Jungle” when we met her because she
had nowhere else to go.
The spirit called her to respond – to help her friends. Her
first-responder instincts nearly cost her her life.
When we walk in the Spirit of truth, we walk without fear.
Working with our fast growing homeless population can be a scary
at times. With MercyWatch and Operation NightWatch, we have encountered many tense
situations, but always listen to that tiny voice in our hearts as we navigate
the encampments and street gatherings.
St. Teresa of Calcutta talks about her call by Jesus to be a light
in the darkest places. For her it was the slums of India.
When we walk in the Spirit of truth, we walk without fear.
What is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is that “tiny whispering
voice” that exists in all our hearts. It prompts and guides us as we do the
ministry of Jesus in the modern world.
Noted author Fr. Richard Rohr wrote this about the Holy
Spirit,
“We are always waiting for the Holy Spirit – somehow forgetting that the Spirit was given to us from the very beginning. The Holy Spirit has rightly been called the forgotten or denied Person of the Blessed Trinity. We cannot sense the Spirit, like we cannot see air, silence, and the space between everything. We look for God ‘out there’ and the Spirit is always ‘in here’ and ‘in between’ everything.”
When guided by the Holy Spirit we can do incredible things for our
Savior, especially when we take care of the people he was most concerned with
during in his ministry, “the least of our sisters and brothers.”
In today’s Gospel of John, we hear Jesus talking about the
advocate, the spirit of truth, sent by God to guide us all. They are locked
away in hiding, scared that what happened to Jesus might happen to them. Jesus
brings them eternal peace in the way of the Holy Spirit, giving the Apostles
the courage to spread the Gospel to the world. All, but John, will suffer a
similar fate as Jesus.
The spirit allows God’s word to penetrate, like an arrow, deep
into each human heart.
Each Sunday or each Mass, and every time we open the bible and
read the word of God, we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd leading us to
places we would rather not go.
When we walk in the Spirit of truth, we walk without fear.
Several years ago the Seattle Times had a particularly
poignant illustration of WHO our unhoused sisters and brothers today.
The article was entitled “The Hidden Homeless: families in the suburbs.” It featured the picture of a father and his four young children living homeless in Everett.
Zach Weber is a single father with four kids. His plight
highlighted a heartbreaking fact: More than 35-thousand students in Washington
schools are homeless.
Think homelessness is only an adult problem involving
people with mental illness and addiction issues? Think again.
Many of the area’s homeless are children, living in cars and
shelters all over Western Washington.
The number of homeless students has nearly doubled since
2007-2008, when the Great Recession hit our country’s economy.
One school nurse in the Mukilteo School District says students try
to hide being homeless. You may remember how cruel kids can be about
fashion and hygiene.
She says, “In every school, there are families in transition that
try to keep it confidential and only tell a select few” the truth about their
homelessness.
She says there are many reasons for the homelessness she
encounters. But this school nurse says the number-one reason for homelessness
is “economic misfortune,” a lost job, a sick kid and large hospital bills, an
eviction.
This is the face of homelessness today. It is not just the scary
people we see pacing the streets of our city ranting and raving at traffic.
The problem is more complex than that.
This is why we have started our Sacred Encounters ministry here at Christ Our Hope (St. Patrick) to seek out the lost and lonely.
If the spirit is speaking to your heart, we welcome you to join in
our efforts. You too can be a light in the darkness and bring Jesus to our sisters
and brothers and their children living homeless.
Pope Francis said something quite
profound about putting our faith in action with the prompting of the Holy
Spirit. He said, “Take
to the streets to evangelize, proclaiming the gospel (by our actions). Remember
that the Church was born "on the way out," that morning of Pentecost.
Draw closer to the poor and touch in their flesh the wounded flesh of Jesus.
Let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit…”
When we walk in the Spirit of truth, we walk without fear.
