HCW newspaper. Oct 2018. Vol XXXVIII, No. 4.

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Publication of Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality

Mark Zwick Founder

Christmas Letter

Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4

Kelly Latimore

Dear Friends of Casa Juan Diego, How we long for the Peace of Bethlehem. But there is no peace, but rather corruption, scandals, terror, and xenophobia.

However, the followers of the Nazarene have nowhere else to go. “To whom shall we go, Lord!” – except Bethlehem to gain the Peace the world cannot give.

The followers of the Nazarene can do more than wring their hands. They can add their drops of committed love to dilute the cesspool of violence, distrust, abuse, and scapegoating of immigrants and the poor, and with the drops of many, in small ways help to create a better world. Serving the desperate is the way to fight one’s despair.

Hospitality With your help we bring peace to many suffering and marginalized people who live with us each night or come to us for help. They include new people with nowhere to go, sick and wounded men and women, pregnant women put on the street, newborns, and the rejects of our culture. Hospitality remains our biggest challenge in providing a culture of life.

Feeding the Hungry You help us give bread instead of a stone as we provide take-home foodstuffs to the hundreds of families who come to us each week. Thanks to you all and the Houston Food Bank.

Old Clothes We still prefer that people wear their old clothes instead of buying new ones—you may remember our “No New Clothes for a Year” program. The money saved by not buying clothes can be used by the poor. New clothes do not remake the person, but generosity does.

The Sick The sick, the wounded, and their respective hospitals call us for help, though we live in the shadow of the greatest medical center in the world. Shadows, however, don’t care for and heal the sick. Serving the many abandoned sick people of society is our greatest expense (medications, living expenses for the paralyzed who cannot receive any other help, and special care are so costly) but a great way to follow the Nazarene. It also gives the medical profession an opportunity to serve the poor.

How is it Possible?

The medical professionals and all who work at Casa Juan Diego give their “work” as a gift without compensation. Their reward is out of this world!

Who needs Christmas?

The poor of Casa Juan Diego need Christmas.

Jesus told us that he is still with us, especially in the poor, in those who suffer. The homeless, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the powerless turn to us constantly, so now we must turn to you.

Grateful We are grateful to you for the many drops of caring concern that come to help us create a river of love for God’s poor at Casa Juan Diego. We hope that you can continue to help us.

Let us pray for one another.

Sincerely in Christ, Louise Zwick and all at Casa Juan Diego

Refugees La Sagrada Familia

All Are Invited: Mass Honoring Mark Zwick

Mark Zwick Special Mass on November 7, 2018, to name the Casa Juan Diego men’s House of Hospitality, Casa Don Marcos in honor of Mark Zwick, founder of Casa Juan Diego.

Where: Houston,

4811 Texas

Casa Juan Diego has grown from one old house in 1980 to ten houses, including Casa Don Bosco, Casa Peter Maurin,, Casa Maria.

The main house is at 4818 Lillian, Rose, Houston 77007.

77007

When: 7:00 p.m., November 7, 2018 Casa Juan Diego Houston Catholic Worker P.O. Box 70113 Houston, Texas, 77270 Return Service Requested

In 1980, Mark founded Casa Juan Diego, a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality where thousands of refugees escaping to Houston during the civil wars in Central America and many since have found safe harbor.

Celebrant: Fr. Rafael Dávila, M.M. NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. Postage PA I D HOUSTON, TEXAS Permit No. 1667

Who Needs Christmas?

Many wish someone would do something about Christmas. The feast is a national pastime which often has little to do with the meaning of the word Christmas or its origins.

Beginning preparations for buying things have just about moved back to the fourth of July.

Some feel we need a new independence day to declare ourselves free from the hype and fierce commercialism of the national holy day called Christmas.

Some ask what in God’s name does this junk-bond, cheap, gaudy commercial

event have to do with Christ or Mass?

Still others hate the idea that they must give – or worse yet, that they must go shopping – even with the “convenience” of online shopping.

Is this no longer a free country?

If they don’t participate, they are put in the Scrooge category.

For them, Christmas becomes a department store.

Some use Christmas shopping and spending to distract themselves from depression or boredom. The credit card bills come later.

Who Needs This Kind of Christmas?

Who needs this kind of Christmas, especially with scandals and corruption everywhere – in the Church, in the government, in schools, in business, in Hollywood, in privatized prisons and detention centers, with daily news that could bring us to the edge of despair?

At a time when it is difficult to find signs of hope, we can turn from the buying frenzy to the deepest meaning of the birth of Jesus, God assuming our humanity and Please see page 8

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Houston Catholic Worker

Meeting Jesus In the Poor

What is Casa Juan Diego?

Serving Guests From the Congo to Guatemala

Our days at Casa Juan Diego are filled with joys, but also sorrows and challenges.

Hurricane Florence Hit Casa Juan Diego

When Hurricane Florence was bearing down on the Carolinas and the East Coast, it had not occurred to us that it would affect immigrant travel. When we received a call that immigrant families who had been released from Immigration were trapped in Houston because no buses were running to the East Coast, Catholic Workers here went into our emergency action mode. When twenty arrived, in addition to our other guests, we purchased more mattresses to help to accommodate them. This group included quite a number of fathers with their adolescent sons. We had rice and beans and other basic foods and clothing for them.

Volunteers tried to help them

make contact to reschedule immigration court appearances. When the buses began running, the travelers continued on their way.

Then a flow of refugees from the Congo began, challenging our ability to speak French.

Joys

We emphasize in our clinics at Casa Juan Diego and Casa Maria care for diabetics. We are reminded of the importance of this medical service as people who have lost a limb or are now blind because of diabetes come to seek help.

One woman we will call Sonia who has had diabetes since her childhood and is now blind, has come in several times with her threeyear-old acting as her guide.

He now has started pre-K, so she comes alone on MetroLift.

We have seldom seen such

Casa Juan Diego was founded in 1980, following the joy as Sonia’s when she Catholic Worker model of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, received her talking glucose to serve immigrants and refugees and the poor with the measuring machine to check corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy. From one small her diabetes. She has to inject house it has grown to nine houses. Casa Juan Diego insulin, but has been unable publishes a newspaper, the Houston Catholic Worker, to read her diabetes testing to share the values of the Catholic Worker machine to know how much movement and the stories of immigrants and insulin to use. When our CW nurse Marie Abernathy refugees uprooted by the realities of the global economy. explained how to use the machine and she heard it reading out her sugar level, for the first time in Spanish, Sonia was overwhelmed.

Jose is in a wheel chair after an accident.

He just graduated from high school and is beginning at community college. When he came for his monthly assistance from Casa Juan Diego he asked if we had a computer to help him with his school work. Fortunately, we had received a new laptop which we were able to give him. Education is his hope for the future.

More Difficult Moments Please see page 6

• Central office for donations of food or clothing: 4818 Rose, Houston, TX 77007. Correspondence: P. O. Box 70113, Houston, TX 77270.

• Women’s House of Hospitality: Hospitality and services for immigrant women and children, especially serving pregnant or physically battered women and their children.

• Assistance to paralyzed and seriously ill immigrants in the community.

• Padre Jack Davis Men’s Cooperative for immigrant men new to the country, 4811 Lillian at Shepherd, Monday through Saturday 6:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Laborers available at $8.00 per hour minimum.

(713) 869-7376. (Must go inside the building) • Don Bosco House for sick and wounded men.

• English classes for guests of the houses.

• Casa Maria Social Service Center and Medical Clinic.

• Casa Juan Diego Medical Clinic.

• Food and clothing centers: For 500 families weekly.

• Casa Juan Diego in Mexico.

• Liturgy in Spanish Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. at 4811 Lillian at Shepherd.

Funding: Casa Juan Diego is funded by voluntary contributions.

Ade Bethune

Angel Valdez Houston Catholic Worker Vol XXXIV, No. 1 Editors

Mark and Louise Zwick

Translators Proofreading Technical Advisor Circulation

Full-time Live-In Catholic Workers Volunteer Immigration lawyers, including French speakers for African refugees Adult diapers (both pull-ups and the flat ones with tape) for the sick and injured Underpads for the bed Baby wipes and other wipes for the sick Wheel Chairs

Our Needs

Maseca (if you buy these in grocery store size, we will not have to rebag it in plastic. We are trying to cut down on plastic pollution.)

Black beans in cans or two pound bags Coffee in sizes for families Oatmeal Underwear and socks for men Underwear in small sizes for women Shampoo Deodorant for men

Towels Bed pillows Toilet tissue Similac baby formula.

Immigrant families are afraid to apply for WIC because the government has decreed that they may never be allowed to apply for legal status or return to the United States if they have received government help. We worry about the babies.

Sofía Rubio, Blanca Flores Dawn McCarty, Monica Hatcher, Lauren Adderly, Alexander Anderson Joachim Zwick Stephen and Lillian Lucas Julián Juárez, Manuel Rangel, Jesús Meléndez, Victor Diaz, Juan Gallardo Guilllermo Rawsi, Miguel Angel Flores, José Luis Gómez, Leonel Martínez, Santos Rivera, Ernesto Patiño, Michael Guzmán Rafael Enrique Monse, Jaime García

Permanent Support Group

Mark and Louise Zwick Stephen and Lillian Lucas, Andy Durham, Herbert Krebs Pam Janks, Dawn McCarty, Alvaro and Jane Montealegre

Volunteer Doctors

Volunteer Dentists Casa Maria

Drs. Alfredo Viteri, Homero Anchondo Daniel Corredor, Magdy Tadros, Nageeb Abdalla, Patrick McColloster, Louis Varela, Wm. Lindsey, Pedro Ramirez, Jorge Guerrero, Sr. Roseanne Popp, CCVI, Alvaro Montalegre, Dario Zuniga, Cecilia Lauder, Jaime Cheveré, Rehabilitation Teams Drs. Joe Piazza, Peter Gambertoglio, A. K. Moradi Juliana Zapata and Manuel Soto

Casa Juan Diego Telephone: (713) 869-7376, email: info@cjd.org World Wide Web: http://www.cjd.org

Houston Catholic Worker

The Eighth Work of Mercy:

On August 2, 2018, Pope Francis made a historic revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Harvey devastated Houston just last year, causing an economic damage of $87 billion in property loss and $10 billion in lost economic output, according to the Greater Houston Partnership.

FEMA reported that 586,862 individuals or households in Houston registered for assistance and $125 billion was needed for damages. The Harvey flood exceeded any flood event in the continental U.S. of the past 1,000 years.

To make matters more dire, the sky-high, record-breaking amount of rain dumped in Texas (51.88 inches) is becoming more common.

More severe hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, droughts, and severe weather conditions around the world are the effects of climate change. These disasters are threatening communities in many parts of the globe and their impact will worsen in the future, contributing to growing human migration as vulnerable populations seek safer, more stable living conditions.

In 2007, Syria, along with Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran, entered the most distressing 3-year drought in the recorded history of the region. Syria suffered severe water scarcity, livestock deaths, and crop failures that drove 1.5 million people from rural areas to the cities. Food prices skyrocketed, leading to economic and social tensions and leaving Syrians dangerously vulnerable to the subsequent war and the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

The United States government’s response to the threat of climate change is of two minds. The current administration refused to recognize climate change as a growing threat to national security, revoked the participation of the U.S. in

the Paris Climate Agreement, virtually eliminated the Obama-era $2 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund, and most recently, revealed its proposals to loosen car

response to the peril of climate change remains ambiguous, people continue moving to new places in search of safety and better opportunities.

Climate change is expected to trigger

L. V. Díaz

By: Betsy Escobar and Colleen Sheehy In his Message for the 2016 World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation entitled Show Mercy to our Common Home, Pope Francis unexpectedly announced an addition of two works of mercy to the original 14 - one corporal and one spiritual - compiled into a single phrase: “care for our common home.” We remember, with the help of Francis, that God first demonstrated boundless mercy to us, which empowers us to engage in mercy ourselves. Given the vastness and beauty of Creation’s interlacing parts (e.g., including the hungry and the sick and not excluding the seas and the atmosphere), Francis emphasizes that we should cooperate with God’s mercy for us by offering mercy toward His Creation, too. On pilgrimage to our heavenly home, we are here, and this home requires our “grateful contemplation” and “simple daily gestures,” as Francis describes. As we ponder the roles that we will play in exercising this new channel of mercy, we present the following exposition on one of our primary concerns for our common home.

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, and others) released mainly as a result of human activity,” wrote Pope Francis in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. As one of the consequences of climate change, Hurricane

Caring for Our Common Home

pollution and fuel-efficiency standards, weaken regulations on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, and render it significantly easier for energy companies to emit methane from their oil and gas wells. Conversely, some members of Congress have urged the Department of Defense, for example, to be diligent in monitoring how climate change will affect major military installations at sea. Additionally, although its victories up to this point have been modest, the Climate Solutions Caucus is gaining momentum and members. If its growth continues, it could feasibly become a voting block of sizeable influence.

While the U.S.

larger and more complex waves of human migration.

Disruption of livelihoods will remain a leading driver of long-term migration over the next decades and climate change is likely to exacerbate this migration. Global warming is considered a “threat multiplier” by experts in the security community, and climate-induced mass migration heightens tensions in the world. Impaired access to food, water, and severe weather are challenges that historically have prompted higher tension. When millions of individuals and families are displaced or compelled to migrate in the face of these challenges, political, ethnic, and religious conflicts arise.

Dorothy Day said in 1979, “We are a barbarous people to still use the death penalty.”

following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.

Lastly, more effective

The most catastrophic impacts of climate change will be experienced most severely by developing countries in the coming decades. Most of the poor people in the world will be affected by phenomena related to climate change, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent upon natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing, and forestry. The poor have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to fend off extreme natural disasters or adapt to climate change, and their access to social services is very limited. For example, changes to a region’s climate, to which local livestock cannot adapt effectively, cause dramatic numbers of livestock deaths. This, in turn, affects the livelihoods of the poor, who are forced to leave their homes and flee, often to large cities, with great uncertainty as to their wellbeing and the futures of their children. Current trends indicate that the world is seeing a tragic rise in the number of migrants fleeing from the grinding poverty intensified by environmental degradation - more than 24 million since 2008. At this point, “climate refugees” are still not recognized as such, with neither definition nor protection, by any international convention.

Sadly, there is widespread indifference to this suffering taking place throughout our world. Our lack of response

No To the Death Penalty

Pope Francis, in his audience of 11 May 2018 approved the following new draft of no. 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, arranging for it to be translated into various languages and inserted in all the editions of the Catechism: The death penalty Number 2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority,

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Please see page 9

systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

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Houston Catholic Worker

Latino Catholics Are the Spiritual Heirs of Juan Diego

how he found us — this is part of the story of our lives.

And every story is different because every life is different.

What is true for all of us — is that this meeting with Jesus changed the direction of our lives. This encounter caused us to leave behind the past — and to begin a new journey with him.

That is why we are here today. And what a beautiful gift, the gift of faith! There is nothing more beautiful than finding Jesus and discovering the truth of his love — the truth that he gave his life for us on the cross; that he died and rose again to set us free to live in holiness and to become saints, the men and women that God created us to be.

Brothers and sisters, that is what this National Fifth Encuentro is all about.

Yes, the Encuentro is also about our identity and missionary responsibility as Latino Catholics in the United States. That is very important.

But more than anything, Encuentro is about the “en-

his disciples on those dusty roads in Galilee and Jerusalem, eventually made its way to Rome. And from there, the journey continue to the ends of the earth — reaching the peoples of Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Church’s journey continued to the Americas with the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in 1531.

We all know that story. We learn it when we are children, we pass it on to our own little ones. It is a beautiful story of God’s tender love in history.

As we know, the Virgin entrusted St. Juan Diego with a mission — she sent him to go and tell the bishop to build a church for our Lord.

Think about that, my brothers and sisters: Jesus entrusted the mission of his Church in the New World to a lay person. Not to a priest or bishop. Not to the member of a religious order.

Jesus called a lay person to be first, to lead his mission in the Americas.

Brothers and sisters, you are the children of Guadalupe, Guadalupanos;

The Virgin entrusted St. Juan Diego with a mission — she sent him to go and tell the bishop to build a church for our Lord.

My brothers and sisters: Jesus entrusted the mission of his Church in the New World to a lay person. Not to a priest or bishop. Not to the member of a religious order.

you are the spiritual heirs of Juan Diego. The mission entrusted to him, is now entrusted to you.

My brothers and sisters, I believe that this moment in the Church — is the hour of the laity. It is the time for saints.

In the spirit of St. Juan Diego, I believe our Lord is calling each of you to “go to the bishops.” He is calling the lay faithful to work together with the bishops to renew and rebuild his Church. Not only in this country, but throughout the continents of the Americas.

This is your great responsibility in this moment. But we need to remember that leadership in the Church is not like leadership in a government or a corporation.

That is what Jesus is talking about today in the Gospel.

It is interesting, isn’t it?

Jesus is teaching them, but the apostles still don’t “get it.” Instead they start arguing over their own privileges, fighting over which of them

Mary Ellen Rouen

My dear brothers and sis ters in Christ: Our Gospel reading today begins with these words: “Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey.”

This is our story, yours and mine. This is the story of the Church.

We are his disciples. That means that at some point in our lives, each one of us has come to know Jesus. How we came to find him — or

counter” with Jesus Christ. It is about realizing that we are disciples on a journey. It is about realizing that the meaning of our life is found in walking with Jesus and sharing in his mission of building his Kingdom.

Brothers and sisters, our lives are a part of something much greater than us.

Your journey is now joined to his. Your story is now part of the story of salvation, the journey of God’s people through history.

What started with Jesus and

by Archbishop José H. Gomez

Our Lady of Guadalupe painting on the fence of Casa Juan Diego – at Rose and Durham

God. Holiness is love that comes to serve, as Jesus came to serve.

Our Lord tells us today: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

As we know, in a few weeks we are going to have a new saint of the Americas — a new Latino saint! Pope Francis is going to canonize Blessed Oscar Romero, the holy bishop of San Salvador.

Not long before his martyrdom, Monseñor Romero said in one his homilies: “Ask yourselves, sisters and brothers: Where is the full realization of my life?

person, to be our guides and inspiration in this time of trial in the Church.

As you know, when he first met the Mother of God, Juan Diego protested. He said he was not powerful enough or holy enough to carry out the mission she was asking.

And of course, we remember those words that Our Lady spoke to him. She said: “I have many messengers who I could send to deliver my message. But it is absolutely necessary that you yourself go.”

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ has a message that he wants you to deliver with your lives. And it is absoJesus called a lay person to be first, lutely necessary that you to lead his mission in the Americas. yourself go to deliver it.

So, let us go always foris the greatest. That scene in Where does the Lord want ward with confidence. Let the Gospel today may be the me? We all have a vocation. us be men and women of first beginnings of clericalWe all have a place in hisencuentro! May each of us ism in the Church. tory. Let us seek our happilead many people to their We know that is not what ness by always asking what own beautiful encounter Jesus wants. St. James says God desires of us.” with Jesus Christ. in the second reading, there Sisters and brothers, these And may Our Lady of is no room in the Church — powerful words are now Guadalupe go with us on our no room in the heart of any addressed to us. Our Lord is journey as disciples of Jesus.

Christian — for “jealousy calling each of you to listen May she help us to be holy and selfish ambition.” for his voice, to seek his will and to be heroes and healers.

Brothers and sisters, you for your lives; to take your These times demand it. And are being called to lead — place in the history of this is what we are made for. not through the desire for power. You are called to In the spirit of St. Juan Diego, I believe lead by your holiness. True our Lord is calling each of you to “go to unity in the Church will only the bishops.” He is calling the lay faithful come about if every one of to work together with the bishops to us — clergy and laity — is striving to be holy as God is renew and rebuild his Church. holy. salvation, and to do your Holiness means self-denial part for the mission of his Homily from the Closing and sacrifice for the sake of Church.

Mass of the V Encuentro, Jesus and the Gospel. HoliLet us ask St. Oscar RomeSeptember 23, 2018 by José ness is giving up our own ro, the holy bishop, and St. H. Gómez, Archbishop of desires in order to follow Juan Diego, the holy lay Los Angeles.

Jesus and to do the will of

Reflections by Dorothy Day The Great Mystery of the Incarnation

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we pray for our material needs, it brings us close to His humanity. He, too, needed food and shelter. He, too, warmed His hands at a fire and lay down in a boat to sleep.

When we have spiritual reading at meals, when we have the rosary at night, when we have study groups, forums, when we go out to distribute literature at meetings, or sell it on the street corners, Christ is there with us.

What we do is very little. But it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do

up enough. I have always to struggle against self. I am not disillusioned with myself either. I know my talents and abilities as well as failures.

But I have done woefully little. I am fifty, and more than half of my adult life is past.

Who knows how much time is left after fifty? Newman says the tragedy is never to have begun.

I have been disillusioned, Disillusioned By Any however, this long, long time Methods Other Than in the means used by any but Those Of the Saints the saints to live in this world Truly I did not want to know God has made for us. The use good and evil. I wanted to of anything but the weapons know, to believe only the good. of the Spirit seems to me madI wanted to believe that man ness. could right wrongs, could tilt (from On Pilgrimage, Eerdthe lance, could love and esmans) pouse the cause of his brother because “an injury to one was Thoughts for Life an injury to all.” I never liked Throughout Dorothy Day’s the appeal to enlightened self- life there were three quotainterest. I wanted to love my tions she frequently repeated. fellows; I loved the poor with The first was from Peter compassion. I could not be Maurin: happy unless I shared poverty, “To make the kind of solived as they did, suffered as ciety where it is easier to be they did. good.”

Well, now at fifty I cannot The second from St. John say that I have been disilluof the Cross: sioned. But I cannot say either “Where there is no love, that I yet share the poverty put love, and you will find and the suffering of the poor. love.”

No matter how much I may The third from Father John live in a slum, I can never be Hugo: poor as the mother of three, “You love God as much as six, ten children is poor (or the one you love the least.” rich either). I can never give

thing he prefers vegetable stews to meat, a hot drink to a cold, oil to butter. He does not smoke; he does not drink wine only “because it causes his brother to stumble.” Otherwise, he believes in feasts as well as fasts, and there are, after all, many feast days, days of rejoicing, weddings, baptismal feasts, name days, and all the Saints’ days.

Saint Francis desired that men should work with their hands. Peter enjoys manual labor. He used to tell the late Father Virgil Michel that if Benedictines had kept to their early ideal of manual labor, there would not be so many breakdowns from mental over-work. “We must

use the whole man,” says Peter, “so that we may be holy men.”

There is nothing he likes better than building fires, and to get down and poke a grate fire until it is all but out, and poke kindling wood in under the coals, and shake it down, and finally dump it, and rebuild it altogether – that is fun! Then to laboriously go over the coal – (we have no sifters) getting out the pieces so none will be wasted, and to empty the ashes – and usually the wind blows them all over Peter, his grey hair, his iron grey suit and shoes.

I’ve seen him setting out like that, to give a lecture somewhere all unbrushed

midst of them. He is with us in our kitchens, at our tables, on our breadlines, with our visitors, on our farms. When

is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did He fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest.

And why must we see results?

Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest.”

(Aims and Purposes of the Catholic Worker Movement)

Kelly Latimore

“The great mystery of the Incarnation,” Dorothy Day said as she spoke about the inspiration for the daily life of those in the Catholic Worker movement, “which meant that God became man that man might become God, was a joy that made us want to kiss the earth in worship, because His feet once trod that same earth. It was a mystery that we as Catholics accepted, but there were also the facts of Christ’s life, that He was born in a stable, that He did not come to be a temporal King, that He worked with His hands, spent the first years of His life in exile, and the rest of His early manhood in a crude carpenter shop in Nazareth.

He trod the roads in His public life and the first men He called were fishermen, small owners of boats and nets. He was familiar with the migrant worker and the proletariat, and some of His parables dealt with them. He spoke of the living wage, not equal pay for equal work, in the parable of those who came at the first and the eleventh hour.

“He died between two thieves because He would not be made an earthly King. He lived in an occupied country for thirty years without starting an underground movement or trying to get out from under a foreign

power. His teaching transcended all the wisdom of the scribes and pharisees, and taught us the most effective means of living

Houston Catholic Worker

Dorothy Day with homeless Christ

in this world while preparing for the next. And He directed His sublime words to the poorest of the poor, to the people who thronged the towns and followed after John the Baptist, who hung around, sick and poverty-stricken at the doors of rich men.” (The Long Loneliness, pp. 204-205).

Christ Is With Us Even in Apparent Failures

“We must practice the presence of God. He said that when two or three are gathered together, there He is in the

Peter Maurin: Apostle To the World

By Dorothy Day The Catholic Worker, September 1945, 6.

Peter Maurin is always getting back to Saint Francis of Assisi, who was most truly the “great personalist.” In his poverty, rich; in renouncing all, possessing all; generous, giving out of his heart, sowing generously and reaping generously, humble and asking when in need, possessing freedom and all joy.

Without doubt, Peter is a free and joyous person. And it is the freedom and joyousness that comes from a clear heart and soul. There are those who might say it comes because of his anarchistic nature, his refusal to enter

into political controversy, his refusal to use worldly means to change the social order.

He does not indeed refuse to use mystical means, physical means, secular means, the means that are at hand. But the means of expediency that men have turned to for so many ages, he disdains.

To give up superfluous possession! Peter has no income so does not need to worry about income taxes. He does not worry about rationing. He uses those things he needs, in the way of clothing and food, “as though he used them not.” He has no worries about style, fit, fashion.

He eats what is put before him, and if he prefers any-

and uncombed, and run after him to refurbish him a bit for company. “It is for the sake of others’” I tell him.

But Peter is oblivious of appearances. There is not much in the way of manual labor he can do around Mott Street except to help keep the fires going and to mend chairs. We are always short of chairs, so each one is a treasure. Since people live out of doors, a good part of the winter as well as the summer, the women in the tenement on either side of us, back and front, come down on the sidewalk when their work in the house is done, and just sit. Usually they Please see page 7

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Houston Catholic Worker

Notre Dame Volunteer Accompanies the Poor

During my time at the men’s house of Casa Juan Diego, my family and friends often asked me to describe what I was doing or how I was feeling. This was one of the most difficult things to do because not only was each day superficially different just based on the nature of the tasks to be accomplished but so were the interactions and people that I talked with each day. Furthermore, being the only live-in volunteer in the men’s house made me kind of on edge all the time because a lot of questions and responsibilities were referred to me all throughout the day.

For the first couple of weeks, I kind of felt like I was separate from the men’s house, as if I was just there to get work done and then retreat into my room and hope I wouldn’t be bothered until the next day. After a few weeks, however, I felt so welcomed and integrated into the community that I would often sit with the men whenever I had the opportunity to just chat and share stories, opinions about food and movies, and just to be together. This transition did not happen overnight, however.

You see, I am from Georgia, and although I had never bought into the media’s portrayal of immigrants as these “dangerous” and “undesirable” people, I must admit that when I first arrived at Casa and met the men, I was nervous. Our outward appearances were wildly different, and I thought to myself things like, “Oh no, what have I gotten myself into? I can’t live with these men.” This is one of my m ost shameful moments in my life: automatically labeling the men living at Casa as the other. As I got to know everyone, however, I realized that the men at Casa are just people like me: we could all be pleasant at times, irritable at others, quiet, talkative, frustrated, etc.

Angel Valdez

by Liam Nugent Liam, a student at the University of Notre Dame.spent eight weeks at Casa Juan Diego this summer.

As Stephen Pope writes, “To accompany means not only to walk with someone but also to encounter that person and become his or her companion” (A Step Along the Way 189).

While I cannot say that I have experienced even a fraction of the struggle that some of the men have faced in their lives, I will say that al to continue “saliendo adelante.”

The most important lesson that I have learned from my experiences at Casa, my personal reflections, and the readings provided by my university’s Summer Service Learning Program is that no matter how

we may fail or think we may have failed in our lives, God wants us to be with Him and each other. We know this to be true because God became man as Jesus Christ in the Incarnation which we celebrate during this upcoming Advent season.

I know that I may have failed and only made the most minor of differences during my time at Casa, but as Bill Arlow says, “It is better to fail in a cause that will finally succeed than to succeed in a cause that will finally fail” (Samuel Wells

and Marcia A. Owen, Living without Enemies 46). So, I may take comfort because I know Casa’s cause will finally succeed because Casa strives towards being with everyone here, just as God is being with us forevermore.

Meeting Jesus In the Poor: Among the many sick and injured people we see each day, each month, inevitably some die. We remember Olvin, a young man who came in each month, only surviving the pain because of his kidney disease through morphine. Each time he came Olvin asked if we had any raisins, his favorite which brought him comfort.

We were glad to find a box of raisins now and then in our pantry to give him along with more basic foods. It was hard when Olvin’s wife

Facing Death and Deportation

recently came to tell us he had died.

Those who pray for Us The very ill and the paralyzed who come for help often tell us they are praying for us, that they know that we have a heart for the poor. We ask that they pray that the Lord may give us wisdom for our work. We are very grateful for their prayers, even though we believe that part of the reason for their prayer is that if anything happened to Casa Juan Diego, there might be

no one to help them. The people tell us that they know the Lord loves the poor and those who suffer.

We know that many of our supporters pray for us as well, as you tell us when you write. Your participation in our Works of Mercy by your support and your prayers makes all possible.

Fearing Deportation One of the young men in a wheel chair who comes for help has received a deportation order. He hopes no one can find him at his house.

He cannot sleep at night, or be at peace during the day because he is overcome with anxiety about what will happen to him, how he will live, if he is deported.

Grateful for School Supplies and Uniforms It was a joy to distribute to families the large numbers of school supplies and uniforms donated to Casa Juan Diego. We are grateful to those who brought the backpacks, notebooks, crayons, markers, rulers, and all the

things the children need, and to the many volunteers who helped to organize all these things so that they could be given to those who needed them.

Forgive Us If We Cannot Help Immediately When You Bring Us Things We rejoice to be able to respond to the needs of many. However, it can be overwhelming.

One afternoon one of our Catholic Workers, not so young any more like some

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Peter Maurin: Apostle To the World established, he has built up groups for round table discussions. Through the farming communes, he has directed attention to fundamental economic ideas.

To him there is a synthesis

contain an outline of history, a criticism of history, an outline of simple solutions.

They all have to do with the world, this life which we know and love, with the needs of our bodies for food, clothing and shelter. His philosophy, his sociology, his economics have a truly religious foundation. There is a synthesis in his instructions to us all, and it is not just to use the catchy phrases that he lists his quotations under the headings, Cult, Culture and Cultivation.

Father Furfey of the Catholic University, in his book, “The History of Social Thought,” brings out in his first chapter how long the history of the human race is.

Richarz, he says, has summarized the evidence which proves that 30,000 years is the absolute minimum, and then he goes on to talk about early human remains of the Pleistocene period, which began from 300,000 to a million years ago, with the weight of opinion inclining more and more to the larger figure. Thomas Mann, in the prelude to Joseph and His Brothers, says that experts estimate the age of the human species as 500,000 years, and calls it a scant reckoning. By the side of these figures, the 1,945 years of Christianity seem relatively an instant in the

Marquette University Archives

come into the store, which is the office, and take the chairs. If they like the chairs they bring them upstairs with them to their homes, leaving us the old brokendown ones.

“That is the way the voluntarily poor are treated,” I tell Peter. “How long does it take Christianity to work, anyway? Because of our generosity in letting them borrow our chairs, because we believe that when someone takes our coat we should offer him our cloak too, then the argument is, ‘they do not appreciate good things, they don’t value what they have, so we might as well take them. We take care of them.’

I’ve seen that argument working in people’s minds hundreds of times. They justify themselves cleverly.

The poor don’t know the difference, they say. ‘Them as has gits,’ and from them who have not, what they have shall be taken away. That’s us.”

Peter does not answer, but takes the broken-down chairs, or those too heavy to be moved, which they have left us, and mends them uncomplainingly.

Peter’s indoctrinations about scholars and workers has this practical result around the houses of hospitality. When the scholar starts scrubbing and cleaning house, the cooperation from the worker is more willing, more spontaneous. Everyone wants to help. The labor and exercise tends to relieve the discouragement that often threatens to encompass the scholar. He understands better after a bout with a mop the discouragements of the poor man, his slothfulness, his hopelessness. He begins, too, to understand what Christ meant when he said He came to minister, not to be ministered unto. He begins to understand the humiliations of the very poor, and by seeking them voluntarily he finds peace and rest in them. “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

But these things are not understood until practiced.

Saint Francis said, “You cannot know what you have not practiced.”

A Jewish convert, who had been making a Retreat with us at Maryfarm, said some weeks after, “It is hard to live in the upside-down world of the gospels.” Truly it is a world of paradoxes,

Peter Maurin about all his ideas – they fit giving up one’s life in order to save it, dying to live. It is together; as blueprints for a new world they are unsurvoluntary poverty, stripping passed, idyllic. But, when it oneself even of what the comes to working them out, world calls dignity, honor, given the human material, human respect. the lack of equipment, the Peter says, “people learn the art of human contacts by vagaries of human nature – there is the rub! Do they living in a house of Hospiwork? Does Christianity tality.” work? If it fails it is glorious Many a time Peter makes in its failure, the failure of what he calls “points,” but the Cross.

I do not understand for I do know this–that when months. He builds up a program of action, his listen- people come into contact ers concede the necessity of with Peter Maurin, they change, they awaken, they working out such a probegin to see, things become gram – and then he expects as new, they look at life in them to guide their lives the light of the Gospels. thereby, readjusting themThey admit the truth he selves to these new ideas possesses and lives by, and which he has presented. If though they themselves fail he fails to influence others to go the whole way their as he has hoped, he shrugs faces are turned at least his shoulders and goes on propounding social doctrine. toward the light. And Peter is patient. Looking at things He is content to wait until as he does in the light of circumstances arise which history, taking the long view, will be more favorable for the working out of his ideas. he is content to play his part, to live by his principles and Certainly through the fifty to wait. thousand readers of THE As Pascal said, “It is not CATHOLIC WORKER (that is its present circulation), he ours to see the triumph of truth, but to fight on its has found for himself many behalf.” readers, many listeners.

I have always thought He had invitations to speak of Peter as an apostle to at colleges, seminaries and groups throughout the coun- the world. In the essays printed in THE CATHOLIC try. Through the Houses of Hospitality which have been WORKER, many of them

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into practice, recognizing the correlation of the soul and body, we are using religion as an insurance policy, as a prop, as a comfort in affliction, and not only is religion then truly an opiate of the people, but we are like men who “beholding our face in a glass, go away, not mindful of what manner of men we are.”

Peter does not talk subjectively about religion.

He brings to us quotations and books and ideas that, by stimulating the mind to know, will encourage the heart to love.

Three quotations from the first letter of Saint John epitomize Peter’s religious attitude for me.

“No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us; and His charity is perfected in us…”

“If any man say: I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not?…”

“He that hath the substance of this world and shall see his brother in need and shall shut up his heart from him; how doth the charity of God abide in him?”

And there is that sentence of Saint James, “If a brother or sister be naked and want daily food, and one of you

When the scholar starts scrubbing and cleaning house, the cooperation from the worker is more willing, more spontaneous.

Everyone wants to help. history of the world.

With this fresh point of view, Peter does not find it at all extraordinary to expect people to try to begin now to put into practice some of the social ideas, not only of the New Testament, but of the old. Unless we try to put these ideas into practice, we are guilty of secularism, so tersely condemned by Pope Pius XI. Unless we are trying to put the social ideas of the Gospel into practice, we are not showing our love for our neighbor. “And how can we love God Whom we have not seen, unless we love our brother whom we do see,” as Saint John wrote. Unless we are putting these social ideas

say to them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit?”

And, of course, to sum it all up, there are those neverto-be-forgotten words of Our Lord, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” It is the above quotations that point the reason for Peter’s preoccupation with the social order, with the need of rebuilding as he says, “within the shell of the old, with a philosophy which is so old that it looks like new.” www.catholicworker.org

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this past August, killed with U. S. bombs purchased by Saudi Arabia? And the millions of children in Yemen at risk of starvation.

The Consumer Christ?

The passion to shop, to buy, to consume, becomes unbridled

Refugee Holy Family

with the commercial celebration and the realities of the lives of many children is stark.

As we write, 560 hundred young migrant children who were kidnapped by the government and separated from their parents are still alone and imprisoned. And a total of at least 12,800 children, unaccompanied minors, are in custody.

More jails are being built and expanded for children.

What will Christmas be like for them? What will it be like as the government makes plans to keep newer families together, but imprisoned for long periods of time in inhuman conditions?

It is hard to see how we can celebrate Christmas without thinking of these children and the birth of Jesus and his Holy Family becoming refugees.

As we shop this year, can we remember the 40 children on a bus on a school trip in Yemen

during the Christmas season.

Even the poor are infected with it, with the little they have.

Witnessing the orgy of Christmas buying by shoppers elicits primordial feelings that leave us uncomfortable and with a sense that things are out of control.

Unleashed is the madness to consume that is somewhat held in check during the rest of the year by the parameters of reality.

Advertisers have no shame in appealing to the basest of human appetites.

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, addressed the issue. She said, “We are all guilty of concupiscence (desires of the flesh), but newspapers, radios, TV and the battalion of advertising people [Woe to that generation! – her words] deliberately stimulate our desires.”

Advertisers can get people

to buy anything, especially at Christmas.

Dorothy said that there are many sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance—for example, depriving a laborer of his hire—but she said that there is another, “to instill in him (the laborer) paltry desires so compulsive that he is willing to sell his liberty and his honor to satisfy them.”

Who needs this kind of Christmas to celebrate the Savior born in a poor stable?

Teaching Greed Children are asked every day after Christmas what presents they received.

The birth of the Son of God means that this is the day that they receive a lot of presents.

Some triumphantly and others anxiously compare their Christmas loot with their peers.

If they don’t receive what they ask for, they are brokenhearted because they will have to confess this to their peers— the heck with this Baby Jesus in the manger stuff.

Children ask for and are given gifts that have nothing to do with their development, growth or character.

Children are taken to see Santa Claus and encouraged to ask for whatever they want.

Gifts are given that appeal to being in style or that are popular or that appear on television ads that make us and the children want to receive them.

Think of how mortified are the children who don’t receive the latest rage or of their parents who are blackmailed to the point of being considered un-American for not conforming—or not being able to afford to conform.

And we don’t hear much about gifts that children have purchased for their parents or creative things that they have made for them.

Greed seems to be the creed.

Has Christmas been stolen by the greed of advertisers, parents and children?

Do We Really Need This?

Do we need this cheap, gaudy commercialism to be able to celebrate Christmas?

Do we need orgiastic

Angel Valdez

somehow still accompanying us in the terrible drama of our times.

Children Stolen From Their Parents and Others Killed by Bombs Ostensibly the commercial celebration is to bring happiness to children. The contrast

mobs invading the Galleria, Walmart, the malls and Amazon.com the day after Thanksgiving?

Do we need to promote Christmas as a Feast of greed?

What Do We Need?

We must steal back Christmas!

We need to celebrate Christmas!

We need Christmas badly – to reflect on what really matters in a time of discouragement, to remember that Jesus came to bring Good Tidings to the poor.

We need the birth of Jesus in our lives.

We need to celebrate Advent in preparation in order to avoid being overcome with despair and anger.

The Magnificat We need to sing the Magnificat, as Mary did when word came to her that she would be the Mother of Jesus on that first Christmas and reflect on her words: “My soul sings the glory of the Lord…

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty…

He has remembered his promise of mercy….”

We need wise women and wise men seeking their stars.

We need to tell and retell the Christmas story to our children.

We must make room in the inn.

We must be great gift givers.

We need to give with our lives and our time and our talents.

We need to advertise the spirit of generosity.

We need to tell our children about the need to avoid greed.

We must give gifts that are thoughtful and meaningful.

We must give ourselves.

Christmas is about giving.

Special Gifts Christmas is more than giving money or receiving it. The Christmas attitude of giving, of service, of remembering the birth in the stable, of giving gifts can continue throughout the year.

At Casa Juan Diego we are keeping our sanity in what must be described as dark times by responding to the poor, the hungry, or the very ill person in front of us, knowing that this person is Jesus in a perhaps decrepit disguise.

In his letter in the Bible, St. James said that all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. He adds that true religion is caring for orphans and widows (the poor) in their affliction.

The peace of Christmas be with you all now—and every day of the year.

L.Y.Z, M.L.Z. ( R.I.P.)

Houston Catholic Worker

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The Eighth Work of Mercy

Practical Steps To Care For Our Common Home

Continued from page 3

Actionable Steps: 1. Limit consumption: a. No new clothes for a year. The average American tosses 81 pounds of cloth-

about/leadership/holy-see/ francis/pope-francis-encyclical-laudato-si-on-environment.cfm 2:https://www.chron.com/ news/houston-weather/ hurricaneharvey/article/ houston-how-much-damage-did-harvey-causeeconomy-12273630. php#photo-14044996 3:https://www.chron.com/ news/houston-texas/houston/ article/Harvey-s-impacton-Houston-area-in-grimdetail-12969537.php

L.V. Diaz

to these horrors involving our sisters and brothers points to the loss of that sense of responsibility to our fellow humankind upon which all civil society is founded.1 While our government has not yet outlined an appropriate course of action in response to our environmental crisis, we can make up our minds and care for our common home, to prevent it from deteriorating further.

Many people in wealthy countries, like the United States and the rest of the western world, are fortunate and have a greater ability to ameliorate the pain that so many others are enduring.

The most recent example on this soil of Hurricane Florence, breaking North Carolina’s record for rainfall, leaving millions with no power, and killing more than a dozen, should only serve as yet another impetus to act - especially since leading climate scientists agree that rising sea levels are augmenting both the frequency and severity of storms. We can support the mitigation of the worst aspects of climate change, by taking small steps to limit our consumption of resources, conserve energy, and reduce pollution.

4: https://pai.org/wp-content/ uploads/2012/01/climatemigration.pdf 5:https://www.nytimes. com/2017/04/19/magazine/ how-a-warming-planetdrives-human-migration.html ing every year leading to 26 billion pounds of textiles and clothes ending up in landfills.

No New Clothes for a Year” has been a campaign of Casa Juan Diego over the years. b. Clean your refrigerator every week. Eat all the food you buy. Most Americans waste 25% of the food they buy. c. Use less water. Take showers instead of baths.

Limit shower time. Turn off the water when brushing your teeth. d. Limit your consumption of meat. Emissions made from agribusiness present an even larger issue than fossil fuels.

2. Conserve energy

a. Tune up your car. Regular maintenance allows cars to function properly and emit less CO2. Make sure your car’s tires are inflated to reduce fuel consumption.

Drive less by choosing to walk, bike, or ride the bus. b. Turn off the lights if you are not using them. c. Open the windows and use a fan before turning the AC colder. Wear a sweater or use a blanket before turning up the heat. d. Eat local, in-season produce whenever possible, to reduce the energy needed for shipping foods all over the country or the world.

3. Reduce pollution

a. Say no to plastic bags. Instead use reusable cloth bags. b. Use a refillable water bottle instead of plastic water bottles.

PLASTICS...

Pope Francis also remarked in his encyclical: “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.” …

References 1:http://www.usccb.org/

6:https://www.nytimes. com/2018/09/10/climate/ methane-emissions-epa.html 7:https://www.militarytimes.com/news/yourmilitary/2018/07/25/ scores-of-lawmakers-warndefense-department-dontwhitewash-climate-changereport/ 8:https://www.sierraclub. org/sierra/climate-solutionscaucus-aims-propel-congressforward-climate-changelegislation 9:https://www.npr.org/ sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/20/621782275/ the-refugees-that-the-worldbarely-pays-attention-to

Meeting Jesus in the Poor and the Privileged

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of us, was trying to respond to eleven different poor people at the door all seeking help of one kind or another.

At the end of the line came a woman with donations of clothing asking for help in bringing them in. Our CW explained that she was quite busy, but she would come when she could. She continued to look for backpacks and school supplies for those at the door, to put

together foodstuffs for others, to find for former guests the things they had been unable to take when they left the house, to look for what our houses for the sick and injured needed from the list they had just presented – and for medicine another was picking up after having seen our volunteer doctor in the clinic.

In the middle of all this, the CW asked a teenage girl who was with her mother

seeking help, if she could assist the donor to bring in her donations. The donor did not accept the girl’s help, but came back to Marie to ask sharply if she had forgotten about her.

Another donor was irritated when a young staff member took care first of a man in a wheel chair that she was already helping to carry packages of food and adult diapers we had given him.

The donor, who had brought

a pair of pants to Casa Juan Diego, worried that the injured man was staring at him. Our CW explained that the man could not see very well and was trying to see where he was going.

A Historical Perspective In this difficult time I am trying to keep a historical perspective by reading Dante. Thanks to notes in Dorothy Day’s Diary, I searched out a used copy of

The Inferno of a translation and commentary by Dorothy Sayers.

Thank You All

Thank you to all of our readers who participate in our works of mercy, those who support us in so many ways.

Pray for us that we may have patience and wisdom in the midst of very busy moments.

L.Y.Z.