Day 88. The Road: “Will You Walk With Me?”
The greatest challenge of the day is how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.
Dorothy Day
She was soaking wet, ragged and pale. “Can I just get a hot cup of coffee?” she asked wearily standing in the middle of the empty restaurant. A bag lady. Probably a heroin addict judging from faraway stare and the shaky hands. The Tuesday lunch rush, what there was of one, had ended and the only waiters on duty were the floor manager and a college sophomore working the bar. She looked so pitiful that the young bartender couldn’t help but feel like it wouldn’t do any harm to give her…
“Hey, you get out! You don’t belong here.” Suddenly the floor manager had emerged from the adjacent dining room like a barking bulldog defending his yard. The quiet desperation of her demeanor held him in check long enough for her to shoot a plaintive glance at the man behind the bar. Wordlessly she turned and retreated out into the bitter February drizzle.
His heart was moved.
“Lord,” the bartender prayed as the gray afternoon silence settled back in, “I’m sorry she was treated that way. If there’s anything I could do for her please show me.”
Two hours later, the welcome ka-chunk of the clock stamping the student’s time card signaled escape. By now his thoughts were far from the afternoon incident. Neglected homework and projects needing attention sat on his desk back at the apartment. He hunched his shoulders against the cold and rammed gloveless fists into his coat pockets but the chill was inescapable. Head down, he hurried to the subway while his mind dawdled behind occupied with other things.
There she was.
He had lifted his head only long enough to get his bearings, but in that split second the bag lady appeared. As forlorn as ever she wandered by with a blank stare not recognizing him. His first reaction was relief. “Good, she didn’t know it was me.” But the next step brought back to mind his prayer in the restaurant.
“Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.” (Heb. 13:2) Only the night before he had read this during his bedtime devotions. Now it came back with inconvenient clarity and for several minutes he stood transfixed on the sidewalk while a debate raged inside. “You prayed for the chance to help her!” his conscience pressed. “But what can I possibly do for someone like that, really?” he retorted in desperate discomfort.
With a final, wrenching act of the will he turned and, facing the bitter wind, set off in pursuit of the wandering addict. There was dread in the pit of his stomach. He hurried along trying to figure out what he would say, and imagining her response. A request for money? He barely had enough to cover his meals for the week. Three and a half blocks were required before he saw her, another block and he was right behind.
His heart racing. He stepped alongside. “Excuse me ma’am?” She stopped and turned. “I was working in that restaurant you came by earlier today.” She nodded. He continued awkwardly, “Um, is there anything I can do for you?”
For a moment a stillness hung over the crowded city sidewalk. She looked him in the eye and then cocked her head to one side with a wry smile.
“Will you walk with me?” she said.
This request was unexpected. No scam story with the inevitable pitch for cash at the end. Just an invitation to walk alongside. He was embarrassed for a moment. “What if I see some friends? What will they think?” But the simplicity of the request made it difficult to turn down. “Sure,” he said with only a moment’s hesitation.
They made their way along together. Down and around Washington Square, up MacDougal and then ending at 8th street. A small Mexican café stood near the corner.
“Do you like guacamole?” she asked her new friend. “Never had it.” he replied but in the short journey his heart had changed and he didn’t mind such a small cost. “I’ll get you some.” he said. The waitress was somewhat startled as the odd couple entered. She seated them with a smirk and took the order.
Before long the meal was over and the two stood once more on the corner. With a smile and an awkward wave they said their farewells never to meet again. An odd question continued to turn in the young man’s mind as he made his way to the train, “Lord, was she an angel?”
Seventeen years passed. The same man prayed in a chapel. Perpetually professed as a religious brother he was reflecting on the counsel of poverty and asking the Lord to give him a deeper insight into the nature of this vow. The scene from the city street so long ago returned in vivid detail and suddenly he grasped what had eluded his understanding then. She was no angel. She had spoken as Jesus himself in the distressing disguise of a poor woman: “Will you walk with me?” It was an invitation not for a brief stroll around a park but to a way of life.
Today we begin to consider the Road. We examine the various paths open to us in pursuing a vowed, celibate vocation. As you know by now, the primary issue isn’t “which” but “with.” Will I see my unfolding vocation as a “with” relationship; a companionship, and a shared journey with Jesus? Will I answer the invitation to accompany the poor Christ?
Celibate vocations are unique in this: they make no sense apart from Jesus Christ. While Christian marriage is a “sign and a participation in that very love with which Christ loved his bride and for which he delivered himself up for her,” nevertheless it does not differ in its visible characteristics from non-Christian marriage. Celibacy for the kingdom of God is directed toward the reality of Jesus’ reign in the world. Celibates are a sign and a witness to Jesus among us.
“The evangelical counsels, by which Christ invites some people to share his experience as the chaste, poor and obedient One, call for and make manifest in those who accept them an explicit desire to be totally conformed to him.” Vita Consecrata 18
Such a vocation cannot be approached as “my prerogative” or “my project.” It is never a personal achievement nor merely a heroic feat performed on God’s behalf. It is a response to an invitation. Here we find the first of many ironies – vocation as a hidden, humble path and a visible, public sign. We continue to listen as we consider his offer made in a still, small voice: “Will you walk with me?”
Novena Prayer
Jesus says: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Pier Giorgio responds: To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth – that is not living but existing.
Let us Pray: Blessed Pier Giorgio, teach me silence in the face of personal humiliation and unjust criticism. But guide me to be courageous like you in standing on the side of God’s truth. Help me to be faithful to Him in all things, so that His will may be done in and through my life. Show me how to persevere in the struggle for those things which are holy and honorable.
Blessed Pier Giorgio, I ask for your intercession in obtaining from God, Who is the source of grace and truth, all the graces necessary for my spiritual and temporal welfare. I confidently turn to you for help in my present need: (in your own words, ask for the Lord to give you the grace to listen with your whole soul).
A Book of Prayers in Honor of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, by Rev. Timothy E. Deeter
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
A QUOTE TO NOTE
1. To Throw Our Pebble in the Pond
Dorothy Day was something of a modern day Mary Magdalene. She lived as a hipster and an intellectual atheist until a crisis pregnancy brought her back to Jesus and the Church. For the rest of her life she fought tirelessly for the poor and for workers, through the Catholic Worker movement. She inspired countless people of all religions, as well as no religion, to defend the most vulnerable members of society. Today the fight continues. Which side am I on? Dorothy wrote…
We confess to being fools and wish that we were more so…What we would like to do is change the world – make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And to a certain extent, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute, we can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world.
We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and dear God – please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend. (1946)
Cited in Works of Mercy compilation of woodprints for the Catholic Worker movement by Fritz Eichenberg,
ed. By Robert Ellsberg, Orbis Books, 1992
Who are the poor in my own life? What are ways I can express the love of Christ to them?
EXAMINE MY HEART
2. At Home With the Poor
The following excerpt from the biography of our patron, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, illustrates the power of his witness. Frassati was a wealthy young man who didn’t let his privileges blind him to the great needs of the poor who lived in his home city of Turin.
Young, handsome, attractive and rich, Pier-Giorgio could have carved out a very pleasant life of ease for himself in the fashionable circles of his city, but he chose instead to be what the simple people called him as he passed down the suberb of Monterosa: “There is young Frassati who is going to his poor.” It was a signal glory for a young man to be thus known, loved and admired, not by a small circle of snobs, but by children, the poor, the obscure – all those who found special favor with Christ.
A friend of his writes: “I always had the impression that Frassati lived only on the edge of his family and his influential friends, and that he created his own family among the poor and unfortunate. There was something heroic in his detachment from all the good fortune which could have been his. The son of a very influential man with a fine future before him, he chose to isolate himself from all that and to become the protector of those who had nothing. That is true greatness. It reminds one somewhat of St. Francis and of how he left behind him the home of his wealthy father.”
Just like the Poverello of Assisi, Frassati was animated by the supernatural light of true Christianity. To someone who was astonished, indeed dismayed, that he should search out the poor in the most sordid quarters of Turin, he, the heir to a considerable fortune, replied with a smile: “Jesus comes to me every morning in Holy Communion: I repay Him in my very small way by visiting the poor.”
To another, who asked him: “How do you overcome your revulsion in these hovels with their foul smells?” he replied: “The house may be sordid, but it is to Christ we are going. Didn’t He say ‘The good you do the poor you do to Me?’ All around the sick and all around the poor I see a special light which has nothing to do with either riches or health.” (P. 31, 32)
The Soul of Pier Giorgio Frassati by Robert Claude, S.J.
We may not think of ourselves as wealthy. This is probably because we notice what others have that we lack – a better smartphone or computer tablet, a nicer car, etc. When we focus on what we don’t have, on what we hope to acquire, we lose sight of the people around us who have more fundamental needs. When was the last time I…
Helped a person on the street who asked me for something?
Gave my time to a service project or social justice activity?
Went without some comfort to provide something for the poor?
Wrote a letter to my elected government representative on behalf of the needs of the poor?
What does this show me about my own care for the poor and vulnerable? Do I need to improve? How?
3. Jesus, Heal My Blindness
We are, for the most part, blind to the poor around us because they make us uncomfortable. Even these questions are unpleasant – causing us to consider things we know we should do but mostly neglect. Bartimaeus is a Biblical model of someone who understood that only Jesus could heal his blindness . Take a moment to read Mark 10:46-52. Despite the crowd that urged him to be quiet, he cried out for Jesus to help him. Our own discomfort with the poor can be like the crowd that urges silence rather than crying out. Below I write a prayer to Jesus asking him to heal my blindness and open my eyes to the poor around me. I pray that Jesus will enable me to see his face in the “distressing disguise of the poor.”
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
[1] Lumen Gentium, 41