The Eucharist and Catholic Social Teaching, Part 5: A Commitment to the Poor in Practice

Pope Benedict XVI declared in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est that “A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented” (Deus Caritas Est, n.14. ). Whenever we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, welcome the stranger, we encounter Christ, Who assures that whatever you have done to the least among you, you do for me (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). Our panel of practitioners and academics who will delve into what it means to put our Eucharistic commitment to the poor into practice.

Moderator:
Michael J. Baxter, Ph.D., is a Visiting Associate Professor at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. 

Speakers:
Renée Darline Roden ’14, ’18 M.A. is a Catholic Worker and a freelance journalist currently based in Chicago.

Rubén García is director of Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas.

Benjamin Peters Ph.D. is a professor of religious studies at the University of St. Joseph in Connecticut.

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Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to the Spring 2024 edition of Conversations That Matter. For those of you who are new, welcome, and for those of you who are returning participants, welcome back. Each semester, the McGrath Institute hosts a series of conversations around a topic of relevance to the Catholic intellectual tradition and pastoral life. Our spring series in light of the Eucharistic Revival, which will culminate in a pilgrimage later this summer in Indianapolis, focuses on the effects or fruits of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the words of Pope Benedict a Eucharist, which was does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented. Our first conversation unpacked this link between the Eucharist and the poor. Today's conversation will help us turn from the theoretical to the practical. And now it is my pleasure to introduce the host of our series this spring, Michael Baxter. Michael Baxter joins the McGrath Institute as a visiting associate professor. He currently teaches at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. He has also held teaching appointments at DePaul University, the University of Dayton, and the University of Notre Dame. Michael Baxter was a co founder of Andre House in Phoenix and the Peter Klaver Catholic Worker in South Bend. He is currently a board member of the Tamarindo Foundation and support of village based social projects in El Salvador. Thank you, Michael. thank you, Christina. It's, it's good to be here, and thank you for everyone tuning into our webinar. the general topic of today's webinar is the Eucharist and Catholic social teaching. we will jump into that, but I want to first, just make some brief introductions of our, speakers today. Ruben Garcia is director of Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas. He founded it with four others. in 1978 under the dual inspiration of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Dorothy Day, and always a good mix of people there, seeking to serve the poor in the spirit of the gospel. The group was led to practice the works of mercy on behalf of migrants and refugees crossing the border and, he's been doing it for 45 years, mercy and love over the long haul. our second speaker is, Renee Darlene Roden, who holds degrees in theology from the University of Notre Dame and in journalism, from, Columbia University. And she's taught theater for nearly two decades to preschool thespians, high school students, college students, and seminarians. And she is a Catholic worker. and freelance journalist who is based in Chicago. and finally, Ben Peters is a professor of religious studies, at the University of St. Joseph in Connecticut. And prior to graduate school, Ben helped start the St. Peter Catholic Worker in South Bend. And he and his wife, Liza, are the parents of four children. All of whom, attend Catholic schools, among other things, and, so these are our speakers today, and, we'd like to have a running conversation with a focus on the, like Christina said, the fruits or the effects of the Eucharist along the lines of what is stated in the Catechism at one point. Number 1397. The Eucharist commits us to the poor. we want to really emphasize here in our conversation today, the, the practical effects of this. What this looks like. And I want to, if I could, begin with, Ruben Garcia. And, to ask you, Ruben, how did you personally come to grasp and see this connection between the Eucharist and your commitment to the poor. And, if you could, what is your story about how this all happened for you and what it looks like in your life and so on? if you could just, start talking about yourself, that would be great. Thank you very much, Michael, for the invite, for the opportunity to join you in one of your Conversations That Matter. I think You're bringing up the theme of the Eucharist and the poor is, I think it's constitutive to the work that, that, we do at Annunciation House and that I think many houses of hospitality do across the country, be they Catholic worker houses or, hospitality houses that welcome the refugee. I think it's important to emphasize, from the very, very beginning that. This is a life journey. when we ask questions like the question that you just put before us, it implies that, people arrive and I don't think any way for myself I have not arrived. I don't know of anyone who says that they have arrived. It is an ongoing search to understand, inward search to understand what Eucharist means in the context of living daily life. Something that's been really important to me, and, when Enunciation House started back in 1978, and we, started to see the arrival of refugees and what got us into welcoming the refugee was the fact that we, someone who was homeless, and that we thought could be received in another existing hospitality site shelter. and we referred them there, they came back and they said, Where you sent me, they will not help me. And when we asked them, why not? The response was, Porque no tengo papeles. I'm undocumented. I don't have immigration documents. And this allowed us to become acutely aware that in El Paso in 1978, of the two existing shelters, neither one of them at that point, had any Will it provide hospitality to individuals who were not documented, that didn't have some level of documentation to be in the United States? And so that spoke to us very profoundly, and that led us to make that fundamental decision that Annunciation House would begin to provide hospitality to the undocumented because of the different the different demographics in El Paso, the, I'm sorry, that, the different demographics in El Paso did not allow for undocumented people to be provided the most basic of services, which was to be provided with, hospitality. that starting point for us, the down to earth, very basic. willingness to open the door and say, yes, you could stay with us, and offer that hospitality to, to individuals that had entered the country and were trying to find either protection or a better life, is where the wrestling with, The Eucharist from the beginning. our first refugees tended to be from Mexico, from El Salvador and soon after Guatemala, given that Annunciation house came into existence in 78, given that the Sandinistas had, were about to replace the Samosa government with a new government, that was. To be democratic, that was to have elections, et cetera. And that motivated other movements in El Salvador and Guatemala to have hoped that they too could arrive at that. And so the refugees that were arriving were Salvadoran, Guatemalans, obviously. people from Mexico. Key to that is the presence of Oscar Romero in El Salvador and, what an incredible, spokesperson, preacher, homilist, theologian, who utterly, profoundly lived the gospel in his own life. and in the end, it took his life. And one of his constant themes to the poor, to the very poor of El Salvador, who were the overwhelming part of the population who lived in true abject poverty. He is saying to them, you are the Christ in the world today. You are the body of Christ. When you reflect on that and you think of Eucharist, we, having gone to Catholic schools all my life, having been in a Catholic grade school, remember making my first communion, at that time, we were told that the host, we weren't supposed to touch it, that was a mortal sin. Because that became the body of Christ, and we were to receive it, we were to consume it. As I reflect on that, and I reflect on Romero, who was saying to the poor, You are the body of Christ. Then what Oscar Romero is inviting us to consider is that if we're going to be a people of faith, if we're going to be a people who seeks to respond to the goal of the gospel, to walk behind in the steps of a Christ, then if we're going to consume the Eucharist, consume the Christ, then we have to consume the poor. And, and that means consuming the poor in, in, in its fullest, in its most profound sense. I say to people that, consuming the poor, as is true of so many things that we consume, sometimes consuming the poor means getting indigestion. that we've got to deal with that because that's what we're called to. And I think that I cannot separate. the experience of Eucharist, the meaning of Eucharist, sacrament of Eucharist from the sacrament of the poor who are the body of Christ in today's world. and I think that if we are going to live that out, then it calls us to that. I cannot. I cannot understand how we can continue to be Christian, how we can continue to be, adherence to the basic call of the gospel and not understand that the Eucharist and the consumption of the Eucharist calls us to a very profound willingness to open ourselves to consume the person of the poor. With all of the implications, all of the implications. so Reuben, let me ask you this, while we're on this. when, back in 78, you started in 78, the little group of five people, and you start to encounter the poor and want to respond in a gospel way to what God is calling you at that time. what did this look like when you were, you just start taking people into, to your house, or how did this work? We're always looking for, what does this, look like in practice, how did this evolve for you? It started for us gathering, our first dining room table at Enunciation House was a big box that we put on the floor and we sat on the floor around the box and we used a sheet and we put the sheet over the box and That was our dining room table. that's where the experience started, and part of understanding if the God of Scripture in the Old, the New Testament, if that God identifies first and foremost with the poor, with the unwanted, with the widow, the orphan, the enslaved, if that God identifies with the least among us, Then we need to start walking the streets of El Paso and we need to understand who might that be in El Paso in 1978. That became clear to us when that individual said, I'm undocumented and there's no place for me to sleep. and so that's what allowed us to. To gain that sense of direction of what Annunciation has, where we would go. There was no, no announcement, no press conference, no signs on the doors. It was just that first decision to receive that one individual who was undocumented. And knowing that if this was of God, if this is what was being asked of us, then we wouldn't have to worry. There would be others to come. And boy, was that ever true. so you guys started out taking one person in and then just more came and more came in and it just grew and evolved into Very much. Yeah. very much. it was allowing it to simply grow step by step. I think, I've had people ask me, Who have visited from different places who have asked me, Ruben, I'm really interested in, in, in having something like an unciation house in the city where I'm at. how does that happen? And 1 things that I say to them, please do not set up a committee. just begin to do it as, as simple and down to earth and little by little as you can, just begin to do it. it, if this is of God, it will lead the way. I think that's so important to, no business plan. I remember I was doing similar work in Phoenix and I remember someone, who came after me at this place, Andre House in Phoenix. And, he had been to Harvard Business School, and he said to me, Mike, what's the, what's the DNA of Andre House, a business school type question. And I said, it's right there in Matthew 25, 31 to 46, Whatsoever you do to the least among us, you do to me, and that's it. and it'll all take care of itself if you act accordingly. we're going to come, we're going to come back, I think, to, to more of this, but let's move on to Renee. Renee Roden. Now you have a different story. I think it's fair to say. but how, tell us how are these realities shape your life and what thoughts do you have about this? Yeah. yeah, first of all, thanks so much for having. us here, Mike. and I really appreciate what you said, Ruben, about all of us being on the way because I feel like I am just a beginner in starting to answer this question, in my own life. But, I think the key is really what you said, Ruben, about the Eucharist, that kind of contrast you brought between the Eucharist is so precious we can't even touch it with our hands, the Eucharistic bread, right? But. If that's true, then how precious must the poor be? And I think You know, my own story, I grew up in a suburb of Minnesota. So it was a place that was designed to give me material comfort, And make sure that, I think what the American dream means to many people, which is that, my parents hope that I would never be in the situation that I am now, which is poor. And so that I think there was this sense growing up that what Matthew 25 means is we're going to be. comfortable. We're going to be prudent, sensible people and make sure that we have everything we need and where there's no precarity. We're very secure and what we'll do is service. We'll do the works of mercy as service. So we'll go to where the poor are and disadvantaged are and give them what they need and then come back to our place of safety. and I think the first thing I saw that challenged that narrative was when I was studying, I studied theology at Notre Dame in undergrad, and I, chose to do a Catholic, social teaching minor because I wanted to go to Calcutta. And someone told me that the two month summer program in Calcutta, if you had a minor in Catholic social teaching, you would have a leg up above the other applicants. And so I was like, great, then I will do that. but I'm so grateful I did that because I think Catholic just absorbing Catholic social teaching, which I had no exposure to as a young person. it was really formative. And then when I was in Kolkata, it was an experience that haunted me because I think it was the first time, what I was doing was service, right? I was coming from my safe little bubble in the United States, coming to Kolkata, doing service and leading, leaving, But it's a great testament to what the sisters are doing that, to be there for two months, it was like, what could I say that I had done or achieved or given to others? It was really that I had just received so much love from the nine girls that I spent most of my day just hanging out with, right? These nine young women with developmental disabilities. it really was like, wait a second, this was just an exchange of love, right? that's all it was. And it haunted me during my final year at Notre Dame. And then when I moved to New York city, where I didn't know how to, it was this moment where I could see all of the same need of Calcutta around me. It's New York city, but I didn't have a community in which to just encounter the people who approached me on the subway, who are panhandling the people I could see in need, right? Like I, I was so haunted about that for my whole time in New York city, Yes, I can just begin. I think that is like a very important point, right? The works of mercy are not rocket science. You just have to begin. You just have to encounter someone, say hello, ask their name, just begin that conversation. But it's hard to do if you don't have the formation of a community that has shown you how to do it, which was what I think I was looking for. and that's so I had encountered the Catholic worker a little bit at Notre Dame. And for those who are, for those who maybe have heard it, but aren't sure what that is, the Catholic worker, which many of all of us are familiar as panelists, the Catholic worker was founded by Dorothy Day. a journalist in 1933, after she had met Peter Morin, who was a French sort of peasant philosopher. Dorothy was looking for a way to blend her deep concern for the poor and the worker with her new Catholic faith, right? she very strongly that Christ would be with and for the poor and with and for the worker. And Peter Morin provided with her with the, both ancient and recent 200 years of Catholic thinking that showed how one could live that out and how one could make that a social reality. And so they made the newspaper, The Catholic Worker, which is still published today. and there are houses of, I think the number is 200 houses of hospitality across the U S. So I really encountered the Catholic worker for the first time. in a serious way, I had visited, Mike and Ben's and Margie's beautiful creation, Peter Claver in South Bend, but I had never really gotten to know the community. And so I encountered the Catholic worker in New York City. And that was where I saw a community that was. Yes, of course they were doing it. They do a soup line, every morning at St. Joe's or they were at the time. And They're feeding the poor, they're doing the works of mercy. But what struck me, right? Was that what was fundamental was not the soup, but was the relationships, right? It's we are living with and among, and we're not going away to our comfortable penthouse apartments. And then coming back to the soup line, like we're here, this is our home. We are in this. And so I think that, that witness. I think what it demonstrated to me, and in all my years of theological education, it was the first time at the Worker that someone ever invited me to become poor, right? Someone who actually said, To be poor is to be free. And I think that's really hard to believe in a place like the United States, which separates us and punishes the poor. It's really hard to believe that because our society gives lie to that. But I think that's the starting point in a serious way of my own journey of seeing the connection between the Eucharist and the poor is understanding that. But the poverty actually is a more creative way to live, is a richer way to live actually. And so that's a little bit of my journey so far. So you found being poor to be freeing. Yeah. just to clarify this, because it really is an inversion of a lot of the, the values that get communicated to us in our society where, with being wealthy is freedom. but you're saying that being poor is freeing, and you sound like a nun, and, but you're not, you're a lay, you're a lay woman. Yes. I am a lay woman. Yeah. And Ruben, you're a lay man. That is correct. so here we have two examples of the universal call to holiness. That Vatican II really established in, in its teaching that all of us, not just certain class of people in the church, but all of us are called to this kind of holiness. I find that striking and, reassuring. Ben Peters. give us, give us some of your story and, how this has looked in your life and any other thoughts you have that you think are relevant to what we're talking about. Okay. that's a big ask, but, but first sir, thanks Mike and thanks Christina and, Maggie for the tech support and for inviting me here and Ruben for, Inspiring me that I need to do more with my life. and Renee, for Challenging Me some of the questions and for both of you, for going first and letting me go last year.'cause that's always the best place to be on a panel. so as Mike said, I was asked or where we were all asked to give some practical ideas, for how the Eucharist and a commitment to social justice, particularly to folks who are poor can be lived out. And after I said yes to this, it dawned on me that this is a pretty, this is a pretty awe inspiring question to, to try to give some practical ideas of how do you live this out. especially without sounding like I have it all figured out, which I should say, despite all the books, I do not have all this figured out. and I certainly struggle a great deal with, to what degree am I actually living out the Christian life, the Christian vocation, my baptismal vocation. And so it's with a great deal of humility then, that I come to this discussion, especially after hearing both Ruben and Renée, speak very powerfully on their own, thoughts on this. But yeah. But, it's with a sense of, maybe, ironic humility that I begin by telling you a little bit about myself, as Mike said a little bit about my story. I grew up in Western Massachusetts in a parish run by Franciscans, and I went to Catholic schools, like Ruben, from kindergarten through graduate school. for all the Catholic school teachers who are listening today, I am a product of Catholic education the whole way through, During these years, I heard a lot about St. Francis of Assisi, from the Franciscan sisters and priests and friars who cycled in and out of my parish and school. And while St. Francis, I think is probably known to a lot of people, for his commitment to poverty and also for his love of the environment and kind of the stereotype of the birdbath saint. we were often reminded growing up that God called Francis, when he first called Francis, to, quote, rebuild my church, right? And so we were taught that it was a commitment to the church, and to the church's sacraments in particular, that were always a part of Francis's love for what he called lady poverty. And so I was taught from early on that it was, the Eucharist in the entire sacramental life, which brings us into communion with others, particularly those most in need. And I think Ruben, especially when you were quoting from Oscar Romero, beautifully articulated that idea that it's the Eucharist that brings us into communion with, that it's others that are the mystical body. And it's, that's what the Eucharist means. and this idea certainly led me, first into a Franciscan seminary. And then a few years later out of a Franciscan seminary, I'm also a lay person, and then to join the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and teach in a Catholic school in Kingston, Jamaica. And then later at the Jesuit middle school in Omaha, Nebraska. It then led me to enroll in the MDiv program at Notre Dame, as Mike said, where I first read about Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker in a class taught by Mike Baxter, where I learned that, the thing that attracted Dorothy Day, when she did convert to Catholicism, the reason she said she became a Catholic was because the Catholic church was the church of the poor. then after graduating from the MDiv, I spent a year working at an orphanage run by Franciscans in Kenya, followed by another year working at a soup kitchen run by the Catholic Charities of Baltimore, and then finally returned again to South Bend to help Mike and Margie Feil start the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker House, and after three years in South Bend to pursue a PhD at the University of Dayton, where I wrote a dissertation on the Catholic Worker and the Retreat. in particular, the kind of famous retreat that Dorothy talks about in The Long Loneliness that had such a deep theological and spiritual influence on her, and that was at its core, a kind of a precursor of that Vatican II universal call to holiness. John Hugo, who crafts the retreat, he tries to bridge that gap between the, that there's not a two tiered Christian life, but that all of us are called to holiness. And I think this really spoke in, in particular to Dorothy Day, in particular in the 1940s where lay people weren't told those kinds of things, in the 1940s. And so looking back at my life, I'm probably midway in this panel between maybe Ruben and Renee. I turned 50 last summer. I can start to see a theme in my life. and so what am I doing now? I feel some sympathy for Renee's parents because I live in the suburbs. I've been married for 20 years, And my wife, Liza, is a double domer from Notre Dame, has a bachelor's degree and an MDiv, and she also lived and worked in the Catholic Worker in South Bend when we first got married and started having kids. And she now works, as a, in a Passionist Retreat Center in our town, where she leads retreats to adults and families and young people, as well as Catholic school students and teachers. And in doing this, she regularly tries to incorporate the works of mercy into her retreats, right? bringing folks to the local soup kitchen or to the Hartford Catholic Worker. Always, I think, hopefully not in a way of dismissive way of what I think the stereotype of, that I think Renee hit on a little bit of kind of charity, of throwing something away, but rather of seeing this deep connection between the sacramental life and service to others. for the past 14 years, I've been teaching theology, as Mike mentioned, at the University of St. Joe's, a small Catholic college in Connecticut, started by the Sisters of Mercy in the middle of the Depression. and the mission of the college was always to serve students from the margins of society, children of immigrants, first generation students, something we still do, I think, very well today. About 40 percent of St. Joe's students are low income Pell eligible, low income and eligible for Pell grants, and nearly as many are students of color. Not surprisingly, St. Joe's does not have a huge endowment, and nor a very high spot on the college rankings. But we educate students who will become nurses and teachers and social workers. Though not a lot of bankers and hedge fund managers, I think, to the chagrin of our institutional advancement folks sometimes, but, but so goes the mission, right? and in my theology classes, I try to teach students that working for those in need is a vocation rooted in the gospels and in the Eucharist, and that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for God. But all of this means that my wife and I don't make a lot of money. and as many, I think, of our panelists and also I'm sure many folks who are listening in know firsthand, there's a certain kind of voluntary poverty that comes for working in the Catholic Church. perhaps not at Notre Dame, but for most Catholic parishes and schools and colleges, budgets are always tight, and the challenges of just staying open are very real. And it's a sacrifice to do work like this. But there's also a great deal of joy. Liza and I have four kids, as Mike mentioned, and again, I feel some sympathy for parents, right? And I once, I oftentimes remember that I once read that raising kids is a work of mercy. It's a way of showing hospitality to strangers, because sometimes I look at my kids and I say, Who are these people, and why do they keep breaking all my things and eating all my food? But, and we try to raise them to be good people, and we try to raise them to share in our Catholic faith. but as any parent knows, this isn't easy, especially in the United States today. And just getting our kids to mass every week can be a struggle, especially after they learned during COVID that mass on TV sometimes can count. But we haven't done this alone either. Our kids have grown up, I think, and I appreciated what Renee said about this. Our kids have grown up in a strong faith community, both our parish and the retreat center that Liza works at. And we've been fortunate enough, as I mentioned in my little bio, to send all of our kids to Catholic schools with the help of a lot of financial aid, I should mention too. But they have been lucky to learn that prayer and the sacraments are not obstacles to their education, but are essential to it. And they've also learned about the Catholic social teaching that, that Rene mentioned that Peter Morin kind of opens up to Dorothy Day, and the church's long history of serving the least of our brothers and sisters. and I think, and I've seen this, put that into practice, right? I think our Catholic schools have been good at teaching our kids that this isn't something that they just talk about, that this is something that's lived out. And so we're happy to see that our kids are starting, at least, to recognize that their education is not simply a path to material success and wealth. But rather as a means for serving others. And as the Franciscans taught me years ago, my kids are now learning that the sacramental life, and I hope the Eucharist, brings them into communion with others, particularly those most in need. The poor, the immigrant, the unborn, the enemy. And so while we can certainly do more, and I talk to Mike often and bemoan this, and my wife and I are continually struggling, that we're always making an inadequate response to those, so many needs of those people around us. I think I hold these as places which I can point to that maybe we can build on, and that maybe we can talk about, also as a panel today. So I will end there. Reuben, I have a question for you. do you guys, down there in El Paso, strive to, to be poor? our houses, when we started an initiation house, we had no funding sources. And, and that, to this day, we don't have any fixed funding sources, and, And we've depended pretty well on spontaneous and voluntary donations. Volunteers receive a stipend and that stipend changes as volunteers stay at Annunciation House one year after another, the houses themselves are pretty simple and we live off the donations that Annunciation House has. That was one of the constitutive elements that was part of. The foundation of Annunciation House when it started, we stayed away from the word poor and we did that because, we were concerned that we were going to get, clogged up by trying to understand what the word poor was. We instead chose the word simply, that we would strive to simply, to live simply. And to try and reflect what was, the reality of so many of the people who arrived, to our houses. to this day, a lot of the meals at Annunciation House have an abundance of beans and rice. and we try and work around the fact that different nationalities have different likes and dislikes, Here on the border in Mexico, pinto bean is what everybody eats. If you're Venezuelan, you much prefer to have, lentils. if you're Central American, you much prefer the red bean or the black bean. if you're Colombian, you're going to want the black bean. So it, it, it varies. But that is very much part of the wrestling, the struggling. in living out, life day in and day out in our houses. Yeah. it's just very striking. You guys are modern day mendicants, people who beg for a living, or let people know what you're doing. And the trust is that the money will come, right? Renee, we have a question that came over the, the line for you. I'm going to read it to you. Okay. and, It says, my question is to Renee, how do you survive being poor? Can you explain the freedom? How do you survive being poor? yes, I think, there's Or simple. Yeah. I do think, Ruben, that was a wise choice to go with simplicity. I do prefer to grapple right now, at least, maybe I'm young and foolish, with the complexity of what poverty means, right? on one hand, There is that sort of like spiritual discipline, which I feel. So there are two parts to it. One is that sort of personal commitment to voluntary poverty. The second is that poverty reveals, a new way to do things. So I'll start with that first part, which is. a personal commitment to voluntary poverty. When I first embraced this, I was living in New York and I was, I had just graduated from journalism school. I had finished up an internship and I was like, I'm just going to freelance. I just, I'm just going to try this. I'm just going to keep writing. that's what I want to do. That's what I feel called to do. I'm just going to keep doing it and see what happens. and so for that whole year, I was living, yeah, I was paying rent on a New York apartment, and I have no idea how it, I would, so many days I would go to mass, and I would just pray, oh God, I just need rent for this month, I just need 500 more dollars, or whatever it was. it's not poverty was blissful or I wasn't like walking around like Francis of Assisi. I don't know that I was entirely on board with lady, poverty. Lady poverty is a beautiful lady, right? I don't know if I've gotten that far yet, but there was a way in which I realized like, Oh, if you do just seek first God's kingdom, if you do just say, this is what I feel called to do instead of saying, God, that's nice, but I don't know that I can afford that. What if I just did and see what happens. And I think it made me a lot more, I think being poor makes you a lot more attentive to the people around you. and it makes you more generous. And so many of our friends in Chicago who are homeless, who have been homeless, note this, right? That if people are begging outside of Aldi, the people who are more likely to stop for them are not the well dressed, accountant. It's more likely one of our friends with her food stamp card who's going to say, what do you need? What can I get you? I have enough this month. Like I have extra, I can get you something. And I think when you're poor, you're more generous because you realize how, how much of a difference those moments can make for you. Like how really sometimes when you're praying for something, you're like, I really do just need 6. I do just need this much to get me through the next thing. I just need subway fare, whatever it is. and so there's a beautiful clarity that's really freeing of what I want versus what I need and what, it's not that I don't like fancy things or beautiful things, but it's you realize that those are luxuries instead of this sort of. The malaise of the United States in so many ways is that things that aren't necessary are marketed to us as necessary. And so we're miserable because instead of getting to enjoy the nice abundance as just a treat, it's like, I need all these things to be happy. So I think there's some, there's a lot of freedom in that sort of personal discipline. and I would say that it opens you up to community. You meet, I've met, yeah, my partner in crime and gospel living, James and I did a begging pilgrimage across New York State and the people that we met as we begged for hospitality each night, just, yeah, we met so many amazing people and built these friendships. And so I think poverty and, or you go to a Catholic worker house and they're rich places because there's so much encounter, like Francis is always, Pope Francis is always calling for the church to create spaces of encounter. And we are literally dying for those in our society right now. We are dying to get out of our loneliness and encounter someone. And so poverty has been a way that I have found I'm more opened up to that. I think the second part is perhaps more important. Because, Like I said, I was in New York and I was, I felt so separated from the poor, even though I was surrounded by them. And New York is a great example because it does feel like when you're there, you're like, Oh, if I'm not selling my soul to mammon and pursuing a job that makes six, seven, eight figures, I won't like, there's no way I can be comfortable here. There's this sort of people feel like I have to make enough money just to have. a 600 square feet of space, whatever it is, right? It's just like the, it feels like you have to sell your soul to be able to afford comfort, or if you don't do that, you're going to be sleeping in a tent. And so I think part of what poverty, the practice of poverty opens up is that, that realization that we don't have any time for usually in our lives because we're so busy just trying to survive that realization, oh, there's gotta be another way to do this. There's gotta be a better way to organize a society than if we're not, fighting to pay rent each month, we're going to be homeless. Like we've, we can think of a better way to do this. and so I think that's also what poverty opens you up to, is oh, what I need is to cooperate with my neighbor. If I have, if I need to ask my neighbor for help, my neighbor will cooperate with me. We're actually gonna be able to make something or do something or build something that maybe doesn't need the engines of capitalism as much as we think we do. So those are the sort of two parts I would say to that. Ruben, building off of what, Renee said about community and so on, you made a kind of a curious comment, that the poor cause you, when you receive the poor, consume the poor, they cause indigestion. what were you thinking about? you must have a story or a bunch of, pictures of what you were talking about. yeah. I think that, when we speak about poverty, when we speak about the poor, when we speak about, and I think I need to clarify something. I am referring primarily to the poor in the context of economic poverty. I've had many discussions with individuals who say to me, someone who is lonely is poor. Someone who has cancer is poor. Someone who is, in, going through a very difficult time. Divorce, separation, et cetera. There, there's different kinds of poverty. What I think is very important to keep in mind is that is absolutely true. There, there is, there are great examples of tremendous pain that comes as we walk through life that can legitimately be referred to as moments of great poverty. What we need to keep in mind is that all of that Is also experienced by the poor is we just said farewell to a woman from Venezuela who has a three year old, daughter who had, who has stage four cancer and, when she arrived, the local medical center who referred her to us, said to us, they referred to her as terminally ill. And, she started doing chemo and that helped and it has restored a great meal. And so here's an example of someone who is literally destitute. She lives in one of our houses of hospitality and there she had a place to, to live and to sleep and her child was with us and taking care of et cetera. She had absolutely zero. She was sincerely destitute. On top of that, she has a, an advanced cancer. it's very questionable as to whether or not she's going to be able to live any great length of time. So everything that we who may not be poor, economically poor, that we have to live with The poor or economically poor are also going to have to deal with that. And I think it's very important. that does not create a wall between what economic poverty causes to, that the poor who are economically poor is very much. in line with Matthew, 25. Having said that, it's very easy for us to romanticize, we speak of Saint Francis, we speak of Mother Teresa, we speak of, Pope Francis, we speak of them. And, I had, the opportunity to invite Mother Teresa to El Paso and she accepted that invitation. She came to El Paso, And, she spoke to a gathering of youth and young adults, thousands of them gathered and she gave her presentation and then there was time for some questions and answers. and this teenage boy comes up to the microphone and he's trying to find the words to ask his question. But fundamentally, what he was asking to Mother Help me to understand, did you start off where you're at now, or did you become this with time? What he was asking at heart was, you're now known throughout the world, you've been on the front cover of Time Magazine, and you've been called a saint, a living saint, and here I am, 15 years of age, and Is there any hope for me to, to also arrive at a place of depth spiritually, of, of union with God? And so when Militaristas response to him was that it is a life journey and it's true for us, the poor, And consuming the poor means that we're going to receive them in their humanity, which is very similar to our own humanity. All that we deal with, whether It's, personal issues, relational issues, the addictions, the different kinds of addictions, whether it's with substance abuse or whether it's with, income, whether it's with work, whether it's with, Whatever form the addiction may take, all of the problems, our lack of understanding of each other, our lack of patience with each other, our inability to understand and to accept each other, that then leads us to fractures in our relationships, etc. All of that is very President among the poor. And so this is why to me it's so important to keep in mind the place of economic poverty that the poor. On a wholesale level are identified with. And we consume that kind of individual. Thank you. All right. it occurs to me one way, to think of that young man asking Mother Teresa that question and your reflection on that is that when it comes to poverty and our struggle to follow Christ, it's more of a direction than a state of life at this moment that we wanna move in a certain direction. So we have a question here that Ben Peters ought to answer. And here's the question, what do you have to say to other people as to how the Eucharist can shape their lives with family commitments, who have jobs and are paying mortgages? Give us some practical advice. So there you go, Ben Peters. just that you. You need all the grace you can get to struggle through all of this. so I think if nothing else, I think what the Eucharist offers is grace to, to keep that perseverance. I, and I do think that's a big part of this. I like what Ruben said about this is a journey. And I think, like the idea of staying on the course of keeping the course and. And I think there is, there, there's a temptation sometimes to say, I'm struggling now with, trying to pay the bills and I have a mortgage and I have children and I'm just trying, or, and then I'm trying to create some kind of a life for my kids and so that's, that, that becomes what I focus on and, and maybe when I was younger, and when I was single, I could do these other things, and then maybe later on in life, and I think where the challenge, especially, where I find the challenge is that how do I see this time in my life, and how do I see this as not simply a kind of a selling out, or a, I'm gonna put all that discipleship stuff off to the side for now, and, and live a kind of middle class life, but rather to see this as part of that longer course of my over the course of my life and over the course of all of our lives as we're called to live this gospel life, and so that's where looking for ways that and seeing ways that sort of the Eucharist and again, I returned to what both Renee and Ruben said, open us up to other people. And I, I think the poor are obviously, poor folks and folks who are struggling in, in, in any way, and not just with economic poverty, but anyway, are struggling. But really that what the Eucharist does is it opens us up to other people. and I think especially in our American society, where so much of. So much of our focus is on ourselves and on our kind of own success and our own independence. And even the idea, I think I say this to my kids a lot of how we even see people who are struggling, who can't take care of themselves are seen as dependent. And what we want to do is. make them independent, right? and we don't want to make them, we, or we don't want them to need help from other people. And I think that's a very American kind of individualistic view, even of people who are struggling, whether it's people with disabilities or people who can't pay their bills or people who don't have political power, that we want to make them as independent and self sufficient as possible. And I think one of the things that the Eucharist makes very real is that none of us are self sufficient, that we all. That we all need, first and foremost, that we all need God. We all need grace, but that we also all need other people. And so the idea of being dependent on others, I think is something that, that the Eucharist, certainly, certainly opens up, I think, and highlights, in my life. And I think in hopefully in, in my family's life and when I try to open up and highlight to my students is that idea of. of opening ourselves up and seeing ourselves in a much more relational way and connected to other people. And that's not a bad thing. that's not a problem that needs to be overcome where I think so much of our American mentality sees that sense of meeting other people or being dependent on other people as a problem. and I think the Eucharist kind of calls that a myth. so that's interesting because, it strikes me that you want to raise your kids. To be the kind of kids who go down to Annunciation House and work in El Paso. to do what you did and I want to raise kids like that too and I feel like I got to empty out my garage and get rid of half my books and move toward the kind of practices of hospitality and so on that, that we've been talking about. so here's the last question. We have a few minutes. Here's the last question. This Eucharistic Revival. Obviously, at the McGrath Institute, we're trying to place the accent on the social implications of the Eucharistic revival. How do we, what advice do each of you have? This will be our last question. Give us a one minute piece of advice or vision or hope for the church in the United States. What should happen? What should be done to, moving the direction that we've been talking about. Give me, give us some answers. Renee Roden, what do you got? thanks for the softball question. I, Francis says that, he says in Evangelii Gaudium, that the preferential option for the poor is not a social commitment or political commitment, it's a theological, it's a theological fact of God. and he says that any church community that thinks that they are exempt from being fundamentally concerned with the poor is dead wrong, right? Very strong language. So I think what we need to realize is if that we are afraid of the poor, if we afraid of being poor ourselves, we do not know God who made himself poor for our sake. And so How do we grow close to our suffering neighbor? how do we embrace the suffering around us and say, this, this fundamentally concerns me as a Christian, as part of the mystical body of Christ? That's quotable. We're going to, we're going to write that quote down. That's a question, not an answer, my apologies. Ben, what do you got? Hope for the church. Hope for the church. I think if nothing else, I think this panel, not to sound cheesy, that I think that where the church is and what the church is, especially going forward in this country are going to be people like us, people, who are struggling with these questions, who don't have easy answers, who are trying to figure out how to live this life. And I think That's a, that's a change, especially as the kind of dynamics of what the Catholic Church looks like in, in the coming years, and whether it's, less clerical and more late, more focused on laity, just for very practical reasons, that there aren't going to be as many priests and deacons and sisters around to, to do this kind of stuff, that this kind of work is going to be done by, lay people, by married people, by people with families, and people who are struggling, and don't maybe have the institutional kind of support, that prior generations had. And I think that's going to open up some new then, questions and maybe some new answers and possibilities here, Ruben hopes for the But what, what quickly jumped out at me is the sense of do not be afraid. I think that, as we walk through life, there's a tendency to want to keep, really, God at an arm's length. we are afraid of coming before God and to receive the Eucharist in, in the form of that wafer in the form of the poor, and that scares us because we are afraid that God is going to ask for everything, which in the end, God does ask for everything, and that everything comes in that moment when we are close to the very last of our breaths, and we realize, At that moment that we are finally surrendering to the totality of the Eucharist where we have consumed, whether it's 10 years or whether it's 20 years 40 years or whether it's 80 years that we have attempted to consume God as we come to know him on this journey. And that last moment in the process, it's very scary. It's very scary to place ourselves before God and to say, enter, come into me and let me trust that. ThinkND. We are afraid of where that's going to take us. That 15 year old boy asking Mother Teresa that question is, it's a question of what is my journey going to look like? and what comes to me is, let's not be afraid. Let's simply trust it. And whether it's, multiple times during the day, whether it's one time during the week, however, wherever it is, let us trust placing ourselves at that moment and say, yes, I will receive you. and it can be in very small ways and it can be in very significant ways and very gentle ways and very traumatic ways. Let me receive you. Let me not be afraid. Let me strive not to be afraid. very inspiring words, especially thinking about ourselves in light of eternity, as Dorothy Day would put it. We all live in the light of eternity, and this is the direction we're headed. Hey, you guys, I wish, I wish, we had more time to talk. I think we should keep talking. We're gonna have more conversations that matter along these lines in the weeks and months to come. I really would love to hear more about what's going on the border in El Paso and other places, Laredo, Brownsville, San Diego. And, more reflections to head us in the direction that's been indicated. These have been, very helpful, I hope, inspiring, edifying, comments, I hope people like them. Please, make sure to, to our listeners, to, keep your eye out for emails about future Conversations That Matter, and, to stay tuned for an email survey that you'll get about this. And, let's continue our Easter journey together, on the road with suddenly Christ in our midst, just like Emmaus. this was great. Thank you all for participating, and we will see you soon. God bless.