Transcript for:
Franciscan Friars' Community Service in Philadelphia

foreign did you ever feel sometimes that there was a void inside you that you were lost maybe you felt that you were all alone in the universe wondering is that all there is Saint Francis he felt like that he felt like that when he knelt in front of this crucifix and winning out there he asked God to put light and bring light into his Darkness and the Lord spoke to him from this crucifix it hung in the Church of San Damiano in Assisi and when it spoke to him I told him to rebuild the church [Music] that little Italian only knew what he started and we're here today down here in the Streets of Philadelphia because of him because of him that makes all the difference in the world he loved Jesus who was poor naked and crucified because Jesus was that's why Francis wanted to become poor he wanted to know as Jesus known he wanted to feel as Jesus felt he also wanted to experience the great love Jesus had in the midst of that suffering and he did we pray and when we pray here at the end that's we we pray that we'll experience that same love from the Lord on the cross to help us to become poor to trust him and let him love us so that we can go out and love all those folks out there who are crucified [Music] amen foreign [Music] this is my neighborhood I live I work here this isn't some third world country [Music] thank you [Music] this is America [Music] thank you [Music] welcome to my neighborhood my name is Francis Pompeii I'm a Franciscan Friar and priest I know it's hard to believe but I live in the shadow of the Cradle of American democracy less than two and a half miles from here is the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall in the late 70s two of our Friars came here in this neighborhood in the Kensington section of Philadelphia they came here to live and to work among the poor back then they served oh about 25 meals a day today we're serving 300 to 600 meals a day we're feeding the poor families children the elderly we're feeding people who suffer from addictions from mental illness in the course of this program you'll learn that we feed anybody who's hungry you'll also meet my Franciscan family you'll meet the sisters you'll meet the Friars you meet the lay people and the volunteers who've come here to live and to become sisters and brothers to the poor living in the example of Saint Francis trying the best we can to live simply so that others can simply live [Music] thank you we have four basic Ministries here the people in the community that are responsible for those Ministries we call the team the team's made up of us Friars that's three four of the sisters and three lay women then there's staff people there's volunteers that come to us just out of college they stay with us for a year we call those The Franciscan volunteers by the way this is one of our Mysteries right here this is St Joseph's men's shelter we call it that because if you go in the door inlaid in the clay tile is the sign Joe's Joe's Bar and Grill before it was our men's shelter it was a bar and grill in addition to the Franciscan volunteers who stay with us and work with us for a year we have volunteers that come in from the outside college students in the area and from out of state they come in and spend a weekend with us and they help us in addition to that we have some of our own guests come and help us on a regular basis Church groups come in and they help us wait on the tables and participate in a variety of other Ministries that we have another one is up the road about all about a mile and a half and that's Saint Benedict's that's our thrift store there's a wonderful woman her name is Marie McCune she's wonderful you're going to love her she's got more faith in her fingernail than I have in my whole body it's there where our folks can go up and they can get clothing coats Etc sometimes bedding and even Furniture if it comes in and it's donated then down this way underneath the elevated train oh it's about a mile we have the sister Thea Bowman Women's Center Estero where our women on the street the women in the neighborhood can go and they find Refuge there they find safety there they find an opportunity to talk to be with one another we don't know a lot what happens there because men aren't allowed last in the heart of our ministry here is the soup kitchen and the soup kitchen is called Saint Francis Inn and that's oh just around the corner here uh matter of fact the meal's gonna start it's just a little while why don't we go over there and we'll see what's happening thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] hi everybody how he's doing today cold out huh cold out hey Pepe how you doing good good are your gloves keeping you warm what happened to the weather got really cold hi Betty how you doing sweetheart Mars how you doing good yeah all right hey are you from you from how you do the amount of suffering of a lot of our people who come here to the end is incredible I'm overwhelmed by the millions of stories that happen here every day the truth is not everybody's created equal some people are born into situations in certain circumstances that are horrendous I know for one story is one young woman born to addicted parents they pass that Addiction on to their child they put alcohol in their baby bottle because they didn't want to be bothered with her crying that poor young woman was an addict at five years old at five years old she was an addict she's on our streets now she hit the streets at 11 years old cruising she sleeps on these sidewalks she sleeps in a van in Billings the stories here are unbelievable there's a lot of suffering with people see ya something's going all right what do you got to eat today Oh there's uh casseroles that's uh pasta casseroles in the orange we got over there right same thing pasta pasta and down here we've got the attitude that's my favorite thing there today okay we're here in the kitchen area and this here is uh Cape a case one over a Franciscan volunteers Kate's been with us for two years now Kate came to stay one but she decided she was gonna stay with us for two we like that we like that over here this is Rick Rick is uh one of our Franciscan uh family members here and he's uh one of our Cooks he comes and volunteers all the time for us good cook better cook when I cook with him why don't we go into the dining room now we're in the dining room hi Paula how are you doing hon all right this is Paul she's part of our Franciscan family here and uh I call her Paola and down the line here is Fred Fred usually helps me dry dishes here when I'm washing that's Fred and that's Tom over there time around dishwashing today that's good it's not me um as you can see this this is where this is where we'll be Distributing the food right here they'll bring it out from the kitchen they put it here and Paula will distribute it but the people don't come here we do it differently why don't we come over here and see what's happening at this table hey Mike uh how many people I don't know how many people are coming in today I spell 350. yes towards the end of the month so we'll have about 350. yeah this is uh brother Michael one of the Friars and what's going to happen is with 350 people that means that we have to get 350 desserts and that's what uh Michael's doing here with uh Bill my favorite job my favorite job uh one of the things we have to do after Michael finishes this job is we have to walk him he tends to eat all the frosting I cut one and I eat yeah and I shot one and I eat uh sometimes sometimes the food that comes in has to be bagged because it comes there's too much in one package and so when we distribute it uh on the people we bag it that's what these uh that's what Kevin's doing Kevin's a Francis and volunteer Kevin's here uh staying with us for a year and Kathy is part of the team she's one of our team members Kathy's been here going on three years now what happens here is that for the first half hour uh through that door we let the senior citizens come in first over here we let in families with uh small children and all children so families can sit down and have a meal together uh that's our approach we just don't distribute to the food to the guests as they come by uh we want to wait on them that's all part of our approach to uh just respect the Dignity of these people give them an opportunity to have a sit-down meal uh we were having to let these people in a lot earlier uh because of the increased number of kids and senior citizens and that's because of the government cutbacks uh the amazing thing is that our folks are out there right now and they're waiting some of our people they'll walk two three miles just to get here for their main meal of the day they'll wait outside in the snow and the rain for 20 minutes to an hour and a half just to get this meal in here now let's get downstairs and we'll see uh just what happens down there because that's where we keep the food hi Barb Hi friend how are you doing good how are you good to see you what are they at you doing today oh I'm loading up boxes and putting things on shelves today we got a lot of stuff in here yeah we do we do stuffing isn't that great maybe you could tell the folks here um what do you do down here what's happening here with all this well um as you see we've got our pantry down here and this is the food that we have to serve our guests it's the food that we live on here at the end and it's what keeps this place running it reminds me always of my roots my Parish when I used to give food and I used to think that one can didn't mean anything but I've come to understand that one can gives you hundreds of cans and with those cans we're able to feed hundreds and hundreds of people so when I put the cans on the shelves one of the things I like to do is to say a little prayer for those people because without their help and support we couldn't serve the guests that we do we couldn't give food to those that are hungry and needy and it makes my job a lot more pleasant or what's this maybe explain what all this is down here these boxes these are our delivery baskets that people are eligible to get once a month and soon we'll be giving those out to guests it's to help them over the Crunch and so these are baskets that will be going to families and to elderly people things that will keep them going for a while I'm gonna let you get back to work so I don't have to do it okay why don't we go over here and we'll see just uh where they do all those deliveries uh before before we go back uh one of the things that uh I go out begging for and that we really need a lot of and that's baby food baby food Similac milk diapers things that you might not think of we keep those things right over here and uh it's good to see that we do have a good Supply in these days this stuff goes very very quickly one of the things that always kind of touches me and it's really kind of heart-wrenching is that uh we actually have uh babies that come here right from the hospital when they come home we we've had them here as young as three days old let's go back this way and we'll see what's going on here hey guys how you doing food's going out now I'll have to shoot into the van and they'll be off and running uh Karen's busy but this is this is Karen Karen is one of our team members Karen how long you've been here Aaron's been here six years and Steve Steve's down here volunteering with us uh today giving us a hand thanks for that Steve it's getting late uh the meal is going to begin in a few minutes upstairs I want to get out in the yard so why don't we go upstairs into the yard and we'll see what the folks are doing [Music] yeah I went to see my daughter she looks so good yeah what are you gonna see her again is it possible yeah yeah we're going to see you huh okay tell her I said hold on all right [Music] kind of a sad story this morning I heard Luther here who was uh as you can tell completely blind he's a regular in our soup kitchen and he comes in with the seeing eye dog and he just told me that someone poisoned his dog and the dog died so we gotta take extra care of him today he's on his own right no sir you think you can do it yeah maybe we're working on trying to get you a new dog we'll get in them yeah nothing's going out here Mike doing fine uh you can see the our fastest growing population as you know is elderly people and the lines we used to have about five or six people over 65 or 70 and now as you can see the line goes out to the street and up around the corner we can feed maybe between 70 and 80 people who are over 65 70 or 80 years old even though there are many children that come into Saint Francis Inn when you see a child that has to eat in a soup kitchen it breaks your heart but down deep in you you say maybe there's a little hope that that kid when they grow up will get out of here when you see someone 70 or 80 years old in a soup kitchen you know they're going to be here for life where are they going to get a job how are they going to improve their life and it's lonely I know one woman that comes in all the time she must be 85 or in her 80s her name is Mabel she's a little tiny face with a massive wrinkles and a little twinkly eyes and usually she's smiling and one day she came in looking very sad and I said Mabel why do you look so sad today and she said my cat died I said Gee that's too bad Mabel um when did your cat die and she said two weeks ago then I started to think to myself I wonder what she did with that cat so I said Mabel what did you do with your cat where is your cat now and she said in bed with me she slept for two weeks with a dead cat because it's the only thing that loved her and it's the only thing that she loved and that's I think the story of our elderly America today they're very very lonely and very much very much alone in Star for love Mike you got a raffle no what these things are all about in the beginning we just let people come in the yard and line up but the crowds are getting so much larger now we have to issue tickets so that they will keep in sequence so the first come first serve saves a lot of problems with people cutting in line so forth no ticket no meal well we're going to see the folks hi everybody how are you doing you ready how are you doing guys hey Mars how are you brother how you doing all right okay hi kids okay where'd you get that yeah is it good you're gonna give me some Maybe what's your name you know you're also pretty oh no come here awful pretty come here tell everybody in the world that you're a donkey tell everybody a pig that means a pig he thinks I'm an undercover cop he is he has for nine years I'm no policeman if I were you wouldn't be here you'd be locked up I'll be happy now yeah he's one of our uh worst cases of what drugs can do to people is what we call a Huffer he takes Thai wall which we call Poor Man's craft and the problem with that drug is it destroys brain cells and he'll never be better if he took cocaine or crack or something like that perhaps there's some hope that he would recover and lead a normal life but he'll never get better so I'm afraid he's going to be another one that'll be here until he dies at one time he had a great job he used to go to work every day in a white shirt and a necktie and he was very sharp and then he somehow got hooked into drugs in this particular case the drugs attacked the nervous system and as a result he can hardly walk he shuffles up Kensington Avenue he can take care of himself personally so as a result of that he comes in sometimes having worn the same clothes for weeks and weeks with a terrible odor even with all his bodily functions he just does in his on his clothes and so sometimes we can't even see guests with him I remember one day Francis father Francis uh took him upstairs actually took a virus soap put him in the shower and scrubbed him down just like they they do in a hospital and that day I think Francis deserved canonization he was a saint that day because that was kind of a bad job [Music] Michelle you know you're awful pretty if you are that's great Hi how are you doing doing all right yours how many you got oh how old who's this [Music] there she is oh she's falling asleep boy that's what I want to do one lesson I learned when I was here at Saint Francis Inn is how important parent affirmation is when you're a child to be loved is so important that's a lesson that I I took it for granted all my life until I came here until I met a young woman her name is Nikki she was born about three blocks from here and when she was 11 years old her father abandoned her and the mother when Nikki was 12 years old the mother started going with this other man who moved in with them the only problem was his stepfather hated Nikki and Nikki hated The Stepfather so when Nikki was 12 and a half years old finally the father went to the mother and said I hate your daughter you have to make a choice it's either me or her guess who the mother chose you're right she chose him so Nikki's mother called her in and sat her down and said Nikki you're 12 and a half years old now you can make it on your own and we don't love you enough to let you continue living in this house so Nikki has been on the streets of Kensington since he was 12 and a half years old a broken life she walks the streets at night looking for some kind of affirmation and love she takes drugs because it kills the pain of knowing that she was never loved and there are so many people that are broken you know they have bad breaks in life like that and you can't really blame them I can't say to her Nikki this is America you can make it on your own she doesn't know what the American dream is so I think that we who are blessed have to reach out and help her hi Han how are you good to see ya welcome everybody before we before we start every meal we gather together like this our staff our team and all those wonderful people come down here today to help us and what we can't do is we gather together like this and we hold hands and we uh we pray you know we ask the Lord to really bless us to make uh this meal a time of really Peace A Time Of Joy for our guests who come in it's an opportunity for us to also experience the Lord for ourselves okay and that we're instruments of that piece as we serve and wait on the tables let's pray loving God we praise you and we thank you for your many blessings to us today we thank you for the food we have to serve for our many and generous volunteers and benefactors we ask you to help us bring your peace and your love to the people we minister to today amen amen hi hon how you doing all the kids doing all right hungry we'll get you something to eat in a minute okay did you have pneumonia I got over that yeah and uh I didn't even know it hey we keep tabs on you I heard you were in the hospital we were praying for you we were praying for you I think less than sister Leslie told us so we started praying for you at Mass we had a low number you waiting okay okay but yours you can go in now you can go in now they're letting the senior citizens in now aren't you going wait a second hey Mary tonight is really sick and stuff it hasn't been standing um [Music] okay Howard the guests when they committed St Francis end they don't know where their next bill is coming from and actually as a matter of fact neither do we if there's no food you know what are we going to have for dinner today and all of a sudden at the door a man comes with fruit and drinks and whatever and there's the you know I'm worried what we're gonna have or we don't have enough bread for sandwiches and the next thing you know there's a delivery of bread and we have enough bread for the sandwiches all right [Music] that's okay [Music] down in the back over there buddy how you doing welcome see now [Music] it's going to be wild yes as you can see there's an awful lot of folks in here and we've seen recently the numbers have been increasing again is the as the government Cuts back on assistance and Aid opportunities so a lot of our people they just have to rely on coming down here they have to rely on coming down here for their main meal [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] we have a table for four already good morning good morning sir good morning good morning see the seats are in the back thanks Justin okay thanks we sometimes get donations from people that are too small to feed three or four hundred people like small cans or a bag of this or a bag of that so what we do is put that aside and there are a lot of families that have a hard time coming to the end either because they're elderly and it's hard for them to get here especially in the bad weather or because they have a lot of children and getting them all bundled up to come out here in the winter is a really tough task so what we do is keep all that food and on Sundays we put it into boxes and we actually put it in the van and go to their homes to deliver them that's what we're doing right now uh the actually the population that we're going to see today is called the hidden homeless and that's something that most Americans aren't aware of that there's a whole segment of our population that is not counted in the census because number one they're not on the street so they're quote not homeless but they don't have a permanent home so they just wander but they're inside off the street and those are the people that we're going to be visiting today some of them actually crawl in abandoned homes and live there with no heat no electricity no running water and they do that all winter it's the conditions I would say that most pets in America cats dogs gerbils whatever you want they live better than our people by far conditions in the home that care even believe it or not love and support and affirmation people's pets live better than many many humans and we're going to see a little of that today Kathy you were telling me about a family that you met what was that story she um she lives in one room and she takes care of six of her grandchildren that seems to be really a norm around here the grandparents basically especially you'll see in the end it's the grandparents that take care of the children a lot of times their children are on the streets from addictions so the grandparents take the role of bringing up their grandchildren so it seems to be the cycle that it's the elderly that are taking care of the young I know a sister who teaches in a Catholic School in Baltimore Maryland she was trying to teach her second graders the Our Father and she would try to say well think of your own father how loving how nurturing and you know the kids would kind of look at her and some of them didn't even know who their father was so she realized in that population that analogy didn't go so she thought of a clever idea and she taught her second graders a new version of the Our Father and then the next morning they came in and they to begin the day all the kids stood up and said in the name of the grandmother and of the son and of the holy spirit amen then they understood what God was like because it was the grandmother in their home that nurtures them it's a grandmother that gives them food that's there with cookies and milk in the afternoon and it's a grandmother that bandages their wounds if they sprayed their knee and so that analogy she used for God then the kids understood I was bringing food to one woman middle-aged woman who lived alone she called her apartment but all it was is a room one big room she had a double bed in it so she had about a foot and a half on one side of space and a foot and a half on the other and that's all and as I put the groceries down on the floor and the foot of the bed I looked up and I saw at the head of the bed like an orange glow then I took a little closer look before I turned around and it was an old rusty toaster oven it was on and the door was open that's what she was heating her apartment with the toaster oven because she couldn't afford anything to pay the fuel bill so those those stories when you see those those are kind of tough and the important thing to remember is places like this people had charged them 200 300 for a room that you guys will see that will have no electricity they'll be charging them that kind of money so every you know people say oh they're on welfare what are they doing with the money a good 75 percent of it goes to just shelter and that does not mean electricity or running water I know a woman has four children he gets 380 dollars from public assistance she pays 350 for rent for a house that doesn't even have a doorknob that has one light bulb no sink refrigerator no heat and believe it or not no paints of glass in the window so that means if she gets 380 dollars a month she has to pay 350 for rent she has thirty dollars to raise four kids for the rest of the month it's incredible oh there she comes I need a oh look who's here I've seen you for a long time ah because you're beautiful [Music] look out look out I gotta get this in this is heavy [Music] foreign this is a heating Kitchen gets heated by this you can see that it's the heating this sink um if you took this and go down like that was here yesterday went down there on the all through the price on the floor the cell is full of water they have two toilets in the house and both toilets are plugged up how many days now Anita [Music] there are all sorts of uh kids here that you know they have to go to the bathroom and it's just in the toilet just sitting in the toilet now Nina come here you want to tell them uh uh how much a month you pay for this I'll pay 151 a month you pay 151 a month right and how many children do you have so far and five grandkids and how much do you get uh a month to spend five five Eleven Forty so yeah between 350 and 400 to raise and that means medical and you take medication yes she's sick herself so she she needs a lot of medication when the kids get sick and there's a newborn baby in the house and school supplies you're always coming to me yes kids Christmas holidays and they don't get from the school they don't give money supplies like buy paper and pencils and stuff yeah every September Anita comes to me she needs the whole kit and caboodle right I tell us I call people I say she's my wife right that's my husband every time she gets trouble she comes to me and I'm not even married to her all right but you're happy sometimes right yeah y'all want to see the solids yo I can't wait I can't wait [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] what would you want to have happen to make your life better a new brand on the house a new house what else and you're me to be my husband I've already taken I'm married to God yes I two the other three of us all right you and God that's right well maybe maybe someday well we gotta go move on to another family so we'll see you thanks for letting us come in all right and I hope you get that plumbing fixed all right now [Music] okay thank you all right love y'all see you next week bye [Music] [Applause] as bad as that house seemed to be there's even a lot more to the story for instance her oldest son is about 16 years old and just he yesterday he had a seizure he has a he's reflected with seizures and he had one that was so bad that he today he's in intensive care at Newman Medical Center that's one of the reasons why she is extra depressed today she just when we left the house just now when she called me over to whisper to me she asked me if I could give her a few dollars and the reason she wants the few dollars is she needs to buy garbage bags to go into the two toilets and put all that is stuffed in those toilets that's about three or four weeks worth of human waste into garbage bags and take them out of the house before her friend comes and tries to fix the plumbing so she's not having a good day today in any way shape manner or form the government decided he's going to take my uh loan away from a place for me on debt and now they're throwing me out of the house the bank today no I gotta be out and by next Saturday I got your kitchen who else is up there and my brother I just put my brother just replaced with somebody but I have the two kids and I had to play some with somebody else is this where you live yes where I live in what are you gonna do but the kids come first in my life I'm on welfare right and I've worked all my life I'm 60 years old I worked all my life as a roofer you know bum right I broke my ankle and I got hit with a baseball bat waiting for a base for a for a bus one night you know I know you know me John listen when you figure out what you need you know maybe the transport stuff around yeah or you're looking for another place I'm looking for a truck that transports or something come on people like you I'll tell you 17 degrees I lived on a railroad and abandoned in Australia did I have to walk around every hour or two and afraid of you know fall asleep and getting frostbite brother Xavier feed me every day and put me in the shelter and saved my life that was suicidal you got me on my feet thank God for people like him praise God for saying huh yeah it's got for people like you right good thank you [Music] boy that's a great hat I like it I can see you buddy today today's sometimes what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to go over to fix up your place that gaping hole that you got maybe no you won't have to pay us a nickel either coming out of the goodness of their heart they're Christians they love the Lord and they're going to come down with the paint and stuff and they'll paint your place and you said something about something's going to help you um what with Furniture okay all right so we'll try to set that up as soon as possible okay I know I don't care you don't get metal you're so mean hi I'm sister Mary we're like a little post office over here we have three drawers of Mill and the mail here is for our guests who are homeless they're also for people who live in houses that don't have a security and their mail could be stolen so it's a safe haven for them to get their mail over here and they can come every day from 11 o'clock on and be able to get their mail from here we also get mail we besides letters from our benefactors and volunteers once in a while we get something from a former guest for example this one that came at Christmas time it's just beautiful dear sisters and brothers at St Francis Inn you probably don't recognize my name but you know my face if I came in I walk the streets of Kensington for two and a half years I did drugs I did tricks I drank just about anything you can think of and many times I even thought of suicide during that time the only place I ever experienced real love and respect was when I walked into Saint Francis Inn and you saved my life now I am clean of drugs I have my own apartment a job and my two children are with me please accept this small donation I know there are other girls walking Kensington Avenue perhaps this will help to save them too Merry Christmas and she enclosed two dollars in it and something like this really revitalizes us to know that there are that we help people in so many different ways I want to be friends with this guy where'd you get these Donuts hey you got better you got that over there were they giving them out over there huh five day old Donuts sometimes they're pretty good there's no mold on that one I don't think all things going you all right I'm all right [Music] you get your tickets yes yeah where are you coming from uh 32nd Street you walked all the way from here that's probably about 40 blocks when did you leave about an hour ago wow you walked all that way well hopefully the weight won't be long get in there and get something good to eat and warm me all right boys okay okay everybody two days by the same you know everybody that's one thing I like about this place open seven days a week you can't beat that some of these places you know some open two or three days seven days a week I was working two jobs sure good for you for two years he was born to bring him again boy that's great we've been praying for you you're looking pretty good now huh [Music] okay thank you it's been a week right since I'm I've been homeless because I lost my house because of drugs because of these people is where I come back to me and I just want to think that's all [Music] all right should I tell you when we take some of this off so you can take it home no okay one bag one bag four shots [Music] there you go do you just volunteer One Time One Day at the end you'll hear laughter throughout the whole time you're here and it's you'll hear the guess laugh you'll hit like the people working laugh and I think it's because they're they're brothers and sisters they they poke at each other they tease each other but when someone's sad they spot it and they'll Embrace each other um we're just a family [Music] [Applause] you have to meet Paul Paul is one of our volunteers and Paul is really part of our family here she's part of our Franciscan family this woman does a lot of work for us and she comes all the time and volunteers and she comes a good long distance to do that this woman's filled a lot of God's love and we feel it all the time only one problem only one problem she wears this deep wonderfully red lipstick and you have to carry a wet towel because she's always kissing Us in the cheek it's wonderful there you go back to work over here it's another story with these guys these guys come all the time to do absolutely nothing we got seniority here just behave yourself Joe Joe's been here 15 years maybe he's been close back to the early early days uh washed billions of dishes not well but buildings sometimes not knowing that anybody in the world would give a damn about me being homeless and for some reason I wanted to hear and when I came here I made the best of friends that instantly made the best of friends I suffer from manic depression and when I'm depressed I barricade myself and I met two really wonderful people coming here um brother Xavier and sister Xavier and when I get depressed or anything they will come and get me or brother Xavier at any time I can call him anytime he'll come day or night and they they're there they listen they don't hang up on you they don't close you out they don't shut you off and they talk really talk to you they feel what you feel my birthday anytime December 21st and I'm the only one in my family who's reached this age I'll be 48. somebody else in my family died 40 42 whatever and uh each year I think that's gonna happen to me and it's like I'll be like waiting for it they wait daily with me and they say Paula you're gonna be here you know and I'd be here another year a little while I'm telling you because I'm bound to do this in a little while I'm going to open a women's shelter and I'm going to help a few people they absolutely treat people with all indignity and respect no matter what you look like no matter who you are all the dignity and respect in the world king would kiss your feet courteous they always stop back to the table is everything good yeah thank you very much all right I thank God for this Mission I do I'm alive today because of the Saint Francis end they stuck by me through thick and thin uh I lost my husband I lost my daughter the day after I lost my daughter somebody said to me what am I going to do I went in the yard said I was going to do drugs they all got around these they stopped me from doing it all right what can I say God bless God bless them God bless everyone I grew up in this neighborhood doing drugs drinking you know a lot of trouble a lot of bad bad things you know from going on in my life back then but uh through a friend I found out about Saint Francis and you know I came up here started eating here and wound up staying at the shelter brother Xavier let me in there you know he let me stay for like over a year I started helping out at the shelter watching the shelter for him this and that and that came around here eating I got to know the people here and I started working in the kitchen and around this this place helped is the biggest part of turning my life around they helped me get my life straight now I'm in April 27th there'll be six years that I'm clean off of everything everything I've been living on the streets for about like 10 years and this is a little rough friends the ones that I used to have just like they passed passed away I'm like a loner now you know without them it'll be a whole lot I mean they really little is that kitchen is they really Do's a lot it feels like you use with your family again it feels like family you have a family brother Xavier he's like a um a saint he's these good people very good a lot he'll take his coat off his back to give to a person I feel it feels like it's Christmas when you see him that's that's the glow he had one of them it's so much stuff he Rejoice you know I can't see how you can do it little is here best time of the day 4 30 to six Mission time Saint Francis time yeah the worst time of the day for me is when I have to come back out here in the streets joy to me is like Joy we've often heard that story there but for the grace of God go I and that never became so clear to me until I met a guest that comes in his name is Danny he's just a few years younger than myself he has crutches he drags both legs up Kensington Avenue into heat every night he's always yellow looking he's jaundiced even the whites of his eyes are yellow one day when he was sitting on the bench waiting to come in I just for conversation I said Danny why do you use crutches this is was this from birth or were you in an accident or what happened and he told me his story that he was in Vietnam and he was in charge of 24 men and one night he was out of control looking for the Viet Cong and he stepped on a land mine and it shattered the whole lower half of his body but it didn't kill him he had 14 major operations and he said to me brother I have more plastic in my legs than I do bone and he lifted up his pant legs and his legs look like Frankenstein's face there were scars all over his legs the problem with Danny is while he was in the hospital for two and a half years he became addicted to medication so when they released him from the hospital he needed the drugs he couldn't get them legally so he had to get them illegally and so Danny is now walking the streets of Kensington still losing the Vietnam War 20 years after it ended and the reason that that story affects me so much is because during that era if you'll recall there was the draft lottery and all of us were issued numbers they actually put the numbers in a barrel and turned them around someone reached in and pulled out a number if your number was pulled didn't matter if you were in college or married or what your job was you'd go down South Carolina for six weeks of training and then put a gun in your hand and you'd be in Vietnam my big question is why was Danny's number picked and mine not if the person that reached in that Barrel to pick the number just turned to clear their throat or to cough if their hand moved to the left an inch they could easily pulled out my number I would been taken from school sent to South Carolina and in Vietnam and I easily could have stepped on that land mine I could be in this line waiting for food and Danny could be a Franciscan priest serving me all of us are just this far from being in a soup kitchen line well it's been a long day I know it's been a long day for me and I'm tired We Begin our day here with prayer each of the four communities that's the sisters the lay people the volunteers ourselves we start our day with shared prayer and then then we gather together over at our house at the friary in the living room and that's where we celebrate we share Eucharist together and why do we do that we do that because we need to do that uh the Eucharist it's the heart it's the heart it's the soul of this place of the end it's it's the heart and the soul of what we're about here in our community you see it's it's at the Eucharist that we need to get fed even on a good day life here is really stressful it can be uh you know who wants to unplug those toilets out there every day who wants to chase the Cockroaches around and separate moldy food wash the floors put mustard on 400 sandwiches uh it's it's it's stressful for just listening to the the heart stories of our people they come with so much Brokenness and so that's why we need to go to the table of the Lord to start our day it's there it's there that Jesus needs to wash my feet he needs to touch me I need that add on to that uh my own personal weaknesses and uh things that I do say that I'm not proud of and uh that hurt people I need to be forgiven I need to be forgiven I need to be healed and I need to get the strength in in the love put inside me so that I can get out there and I can go be a forgiver I can get out there and I can be a Healer I I can go out and give strength to other people and so life really here is it's a journey it's a journey that flows out of the Eucharist it's a journey with Jesus every day and that Journey takes us to many places and many experiences and that Journey is a journey to find and to experience Jesus and other people it's also to as Saint Francis said it's a to become to really become an instrument of Jesus's love that Journey for our community and uh that Journey for me that begins over there at the friary it begins at the the Lord's table [Music] [Music] Come Holy Spirit and give out the Heavenly Radiance of thy light come father of the poor come Giver of gifts come Light Of All Hearts best of comforters sweet guest of the soul refreshingly sweet almost blessed light for the inmost heart of thy faithful let's ask the Lord to forgive us Lord we know that you're here we begin to sense that you're present in our room in our Circle at this table and Lord we're asking you now as a community forgive us and to forgive us individually and so Lord for anything that we did yesterday that disappointed you Lord have mercy or if we hurt anybody yesterday then wherever they are go to them now and heal them and forgive us Christ have mercy Christ may you the almighty God here have mercy on all of us Lord forgive us these sins and bring us to new and everlasting life amen the Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I shall want the Lord is my shepherd [Music] the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want invergent pastures he gives me reports beside restful Waters he leads me he refreshes my soul the Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I shall want he guides me in right paths for his name even though I walk in the dark Valley I fear no evil for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage the Lord is my shepherd there is nothing I shall want only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life and I shout well in the house of the Lord for years to come the Lord is my shepherd there is now Jesus he said this to his disciples he said live on in me as I do in you no more than a branch can bear fruit of itself apart from the Vine can you bear fruit apart from me I am the Vine and you're the branches he who lives in me and I in him thou produce abundantly repart from me you can do nothing if you live in me and my words stay part of you you may ask what you will it'll be done for you my father's been glorified and you are bearing much fruit and becoming my disciples as the father has loved me so I have loved you the gospel of the Lord r Eucharist is Eucharist in mass is it something that we come here and I want to read I want to read these words out of this book or some ritual and then we get communion and then we go the Eucharist it's a way of life it's a way of life and that way of life is that we bring it we bring our agenda we bring our life here and we let the Lord forgive us you know those things that do drag us down heal us make us whole why so that we can go out there and do the same it's interesting what the Lord says do you hear it we always hear we hear it but do we really hear it what he says at the end of the consecration he says do this in memory of me I don't really think he means go to mass and do Mass go through this ritual and that way you'll remember me I don't think so I think he really meant do you personally you as a community I want you to do for others what I have just done for you here in this room I love yous I forgive you he says and I'm with you every day until the end of time there are days when I don't feel like being a priest I don't feel like doing this and it's on those days then when we come to the part of the consecration in the mass that I really listen to what Jesus is saying and I imagine him saying it to me personally this is my body Francis and it's here and I give it up for you and then he says I know you've been out there shedding your blood and it hurts sometimes but I want you to know that I give you my blood and I'm willing to shed it for you now so that you'll know that I love you you're forgiven free from all that nonsense and that I'm with you to heal you and to breathe life in you today and put a smile on your face and joy and soar and then I imagine those last words when he says do this in memory of me then that's when I imagine myself saying those words back to Jesus and to you and I imagine saying it to the guests out there that I want to meet today it's like saying Lord okay I don't feel like it but because I felt your love right here I'll get out there today I'll get out there and and I'll be your body today I'll be your hands today and put the mustard on the sandwiches get out and sort out all that bread that you know I hate sorting out it seems to multiply all the time I'll get out there and do that again today Lord I'll get out there and be arise your ears and your mouthpiece and then when I do the consecration of the wine I say okay Lord as you gave me your blood and shed it I'll go out there again today I'm willing to go out there and and take a little bit more abuse and shed my blood for you today I know at that moment that I really I I know that I just feel it you know you can really feel the love of God right in there just renewing you it's really renewing me it's not my power it's like what Jeanette was saying in the first reading it's like it's this power that we possess in our Earth and vessel and and it's here it's in the Eucharist it's right on this table it's going to be in a couple minutes let's claim that let's claim that this morning and let's hear Jesus call our names this morning let's let them really again free us up free us up put a smile on her face is put joy in us so that we can go out there and become him for other people and become Eucharist let's pray Lord You Are Holy you're the source of everything that is Holy this this is my body and my body will be given up for you for this is the cup of My Blood it is the blood of the new and Everlasting Covenant my blood will be shed for you and for all so that your sins will be forgiven do this in memory of me [Music] Kevin the body of the Lord thank you [Music] [Music] foreign foreign let us pray Lord as your body and blood is becoming one with ours and we with you may we be joined together today Lord may we go forth and bear fruit that we can go out there Lord in love as you've loved us here we do ask this Jesus in your name amen the Lord be with you God bless all of us in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen now let's go forth to Proclaim by what we do and say today Jesus Christ is Lord go to work [Applause] okay now it's time to go to work what that means is it all people in the community they have their assignments for the day uh I myself this morning I have to get down to uh Saint Benedict's that's the clothing store I ran into the other day senior citizen uh really lives in some real awful conditions and I told him I would go down and get them some clothing and maybe some bedding so I have to do that then on the way back we'll stop over at St Joseph's that's the The Men's Shelter by the way this here is one of my special uh possessions that I have and it's very special to me this crucifix is a hand carved wood and it comes from Italy I'm Italian and uh it's over 100 years old the Italian immigrants brought it over on the boat and they were poor and what they did is they built a church around it and this hung in the sanctuary in that small church and the church was my home Parish upstate New York this image right here uh Jesus on the cross for Saint Francis it was really it was really the central image uh that captured his whole imagination it was Center Central to his whole spirituality it was the image of the poor in the naked in the in the crucified Christ it guided him throughout his life it gave him great comfort and peace it does me too time to go to work let's go Lord a few weeks ago Matt who's one of our Franciscan volunteers and myself we were out doing deliveries and we did a delay we brought some food to uh one of our women Betty and when we got into her house it was unbelievable what we saw the images from her house they still they're still rolling around in my head hey bat you got a lot of stuff for you we're gonna bring it up okay okay [Music] okay ready when it rains the week's real bad huh we gotta get you out of here 300 bucks a month you get 380 right 380. and you paid 300 for this unbelievable 300 bucks and you get 380 300 for this I know we get 200 and I only have 180 left so what go to 15 years that's why you gotta come to our place yeah no not yeah it's awesome I can't afford to buy clothes here I know we gotta do some more of those two up at St Benedict's all right a voucher and get you up there and get you another wardrobe but we got to get you out of here but in the time being when I get onto Saint Benedict's we're gonna get you some bedding for this where do you sleeping on the couch yeah we need to get you some pillows some bedding and some blankets I got a card for you for my mom okay we'll look we'll keep looking all right but in the meantime we got to get you some bet when you come when you come for a shower tomorrow we're going to try to get you some blankets bedding and we're gonna try to get you um blankets and bedding and we're gonna be making a pillowcase or something like that 380 a month how do you live on that huh all right that's okay you're not coming over the internet you will see you tomorrow okay we'll see you buddy all right if you're gonna help you get out here too late I will we'll work on it do what I can okay but he's Betty's situation his story is just unfortunately too common around here when you're cold and you're homeless what do you go you go into these empty abandoned buildings around here but if you don't have a kerosene heater then you risk you risk freezing to death last year I know we lost uh three or four just right around here in this neighborhood uh not too long ago I was in one of the abandoned buildings and ran into two men who've been living and sleeping in there and they've been in there for a long time how you doing you've been staying in here somebody is living in here right it's okay well we'd like to correct this we like to get places like this fixed up so people can have a decent place to stay well there you go so uh just uh this is where people are staying they're they're staying in here obviously this gentleman here lives here and he said that there's actually somebody upstairs who's uh sleeping it is hard to believe that we're in Philadelphia we're less than three miles from the Liberty Bell and uh this isn't this isn't some other uh poor country this is America people are living in here what they'll do is try to get kerosene heaters some blankets Etc like that to stay warm and then they'll probably come to our place how are you doing guy I'm in here to kick you out or anything we're here to try to do something about this trying to get better housing for people what's your name Brother Francis from the mission down here in Saint Francis even you need a bigger coat uh tomorrow is Thursday show up around nine o'clock nine o'clock 9 15. we'll give you a voucher you can go to our thrift store and get you a better code okay maybe some other things you might need thank you also tonight at 4 30 is our main meal and you can get a ticket and they might be passing out gloves and blankets how long you been in here um Brother Francis huh I'll be with you guys you hang in there okay where we're going now is one of our homeless men he's been living up here for a couple of months uh in a shack and uh I brought him a sleeping bag the other day but I promised him I'd bring him another blanket because um he was still cold all these smokes I got there's been a fire [Applause] oh God Marquee Mark lived here Mark Marcus Mark's uh about 35 years old um and he was disabled with a back trouble and he lived here something happened he must have got some there's a fire this is a sleeping bag I gave him [Applause] yes look at this my God I can remember these sandals here I've never given them from the from the thrift store boy I hope he's okay one of the things that I that I like about Mark is his openness and his honesty down here there's no masks we are we are You Can't Hide You can't hide behind your money your economic status or your job when you stand in line with 300 to 600 people a day for your main meal we know who you are and we know what you are down here you really have to cut through a lot of things even denominations uh either you're either into Jesus and you're walking with him every day or you're not down here at survival survival and when you're surviving before have taught me that that pushes you that pushes you into the Lord and that pushes you into other people and relationships and that's where the real stuff is that's where the stuff of life is in the end the only thing that really matters in life is the Lord it's the Lord and one another this is Tent City if you can imagine around May and all through the summer they're about 80 to 100 people who lived here they lived in Shacks that they built all along here over there in the middle they came here they came here because there was no room in the city shelters they closed them there was no more money from the government to expand them they couldn't afford any housing around here there was too many buildings that were boarded up City didn't fix them wouldn't fix them so they came here and they lived here all summer I used to bring over food from the soup kitchen in the evening food that we had left over from the meal I bring it here sit talk with the folks these people they they taught me they taught me what poverty really is and the meaning of it poverty poverty isn't the Cockroaches poverty isn't the rats it's not the moldy food poverty poverty isn't the people and the kids who had to drink and wash and add fire hydrant down there poverty poverty isn't the people and these folks who had to dig holes so that they could urinate and defecate in them poverty isn't these shacks and this garbage where these people had to come and they had to sleep in the dirt made asleep in the mud when it rained [Music] that is in poverty poverty is the rage poverty is the frustration and poverty is the powerlessness it's the powerlessness that you feel when you can't do anything about it these people these people taught me that the god they believe in is the god who loves them so much that he became poor he became poor in Jesus to share in their sufferings to share in their garbage so that they they could share in his power so they could share in his comfort they could share in his love and in his hope this is Holy Ground Jesus was here hey Julie you doing today all right good to see you Julianne Caruso one of our Franciscan volunteers Julianne uh came for one year but decided to stay for another one and we're happy about that Julianne and I are part of the minority of Italians here in the community she's my Italian connection and spaghetti connection Miss garlic 1997. Julian I I stopped by I I have to pick up I gotta pick up some clothing for Betty uh-huh uh and she needs some tops maybe some sweaters I gotta go back and get a coat some of the bedding if you could get the tops and the sweaters here sure I'll go back and get the other stuff great I want to see I want to see Marie though before I do that is she here yes okay I'll go back there okay ah there they are floor uh two hunks of Burning Love right here boy this is Sister Flora sister Flora goes right back to the beginning she was part of that uh the group of the two Friars who came here and started this whole operation here in Kensington that's uh father Bob strezinski and father Rodney tree and right behind me is Marie Marie McCune same with Marie Marie's been here on a Friday in June father Rod 19 years ago accepted me off every first Thrift Shop Sinclair's and I've been here ever since now Marie now Marie if you want to know where the holy spirit is today one of those places he's right inside this woman right here I usually come down here and get my daily dose of Marie I get that pump that Spirit right in he forgets a drink at the Living Water okay okay all right let's see what we have here okay let's see this is where we keep the bedding here take this stuff over it's good all right now let's look for a coat a Betty like ah we'll take this one that looks like Betty that's fine Julian how'd you make it out you got anything yeah yeah oh good because you're you're organized somewhere okay Julian I'll see ya okay Marie Sister four I'll see you father God bless God bless thank you this is Philadelphia Eagles territory but there's a Dallas Cowboy fanatic here and that's Charlie Moore nine years ago Charlie he was one of the men on the street who used to use the Men's Shelter but now Charlie's part of our Franciscan family and he lives at the shelter and he helps supervise it with brother Xavier well you meet Charlie he's a real character he's like E.T you know great guy but from another planet we love him he's a good man and uh he's a good friend of mine I got here nine years ago uh one day I was just on I was doing drugs and everything else and kind of like got my pay got my income tax check went out and got high that morning was doing it all day and at night I reached in my pocket for a lousy 60 cents and I didn't have it and I sat down and said and started crying like a baby I said to myself oh my God this isn't what I want to do I got in touch with my ex-wife she wouldn't let me come there but she told me I could she'd give me a name to get in touch with and that was brother Xavier and I come and I stayed with him and I kind of enjoyed what they were doing here so I kind of got myself tied into it now I've been here for like nine years two months and I think I'll stay until I get a gold watch or I'm 60. whatever comes first now in my past the community accepted me how I felt what I was and what I am and how they could change me and boy did they ever change me in my life I used to be somebody that was just a Mr tough guy I thought that he could do everything and hurt everybody now they don't want to hurt anyone I just want to help everyone just part of my life now and only God knows about what happened without Saint Francis and I ain't going back to what I used to do I ain't going back to what I did forget it like and there is change for everyone so there's there's no such there's no such thing that you can't you gotta you gotta be able to feel it here but mostly here in your heart it's where it's got to be changed and God will help you do that sometimes when the guys start telling me stories about oh they they're tired of this and they want to give up life and all I tell them I tell them well you give me you give me five minutes of your time I'll tell you my story and if I can't at least have you think about it in your mind then it's no good for you and I then I tell them my story and they go no not you Charlie you wouldn't be somebody like that you would never do things like that oh yeah yeah I was just as evil as anybody else out there oh yeah the nuns are the Riff Raff and nobody jokes around here we know we're not like that people we're not that kind of people here we're we're we're we're we're really we're good people well at least I know I'm good that's what we're gonna feed the nuns just before I came in here we rattled somebody some some man just came right down these stairs the burned out stairs right there and they're burned out because that's how people who stay here keep warm uh but he went right out of there there's people living in here well here it is for all you people who are into real estate there it is early American poverty Jesus said I was thirsty you gave me something to drink hungry and you gave me something to eat I was naked and you clothed me I had no place to stay and it was you who took me in and you will ask Lord when will we see you why don't we see you thirsty give you something to drink when did we see you naked and give you some clothing why don't we see you homeless and we took you in Jesus will say to you and he'll say to me as often as you did these things for the least the least of my sisters and brothers you were doing it to me we feed 400 people a day you know every nobody's here because they want to no one would stand in line for an hour and a half for a free bowl of soup and a cheese sandwich especially when I cook you know unless they they needed to and I I think it's up to us who are blessed to reach out to people who are not blessed I mean every every story I hear I'm about that far from being in this line myself everyone is but they don't realize it you know one little thing in life could go wrong and the rest of your life could be a downward spiral and so I I you know when you look up to God and pray say I realize now how much I'm blessed what can I do to repay you God is going to answer nothing I'm God I don't need anything but I know people who do need help and that's my other children and God's other children our brothers and sisters all right we're on our this is Front Street we're on our way over to the uh St Joseph's The Men's Shelter and I'll go in there and see if uh brother Xavier's in there because he he lives here and he uh he supervises and he runs the shelter okay here we are right here well this is the men's shelter as you can see we have eight beds along here and this is where the men come in at night they come in around 6 30. uh what we have for the men like over here is uh some showers when you're homeless what do you take a bath where do you take a shower so we we give the fellas an opportunity to take that shower and what do you wash your clothes when you're out on the streets so we give the men that opportunity also to to do a wash uh this uh this is a real important room uh brother Xavier usually brings over some goodies for the guys to eat in the evening uh usually brings that stuff over from the soup kitchen this is a real important room because the fellas get in here and they they get to talk and that's good because they can break down some of those walls that can separate them so that when they're out there on the street you know they can look out for one another and protect one another hey hey good to see you how you've been okay how about you cold so cold it was really cold last night yeah did you have a full house are you always a Full House Full House yeah right we just stopped over and wanted to see what you're doing over here wanted to see uh the shelter doing good stuff yeah you're gonna be over to the meal later yes okay we'll catch you over there all right all right carry on okay all right don't eat all those potato chips brother Xavier and uh Charlie Moore they live upstairs uh on the second floor that man in there if you want to know what poverty is he lives it the other day he Jose he told me that the only thing that he owned were his mistakes and uh I didn't see any paper money for at least six weeks when I was here and I kept going to brother Xavier and say when we need something where do we go to get money and he says there's a tin box on the second floor if there's money in it then you can use it if there's not well it'll come someday you know and I said how does this place exist and then I found out we had twenty dollars in the bank I said how does it keep going you know and then I remember one specific incident when we ran out of toilet paper I went to Xavier says now we do not have toilet paper what do I do to go get toilet paper he just laughed and said God will provide and he walked away I said I can't believe this my that night my friends from Boston where I had been before called and would ask me how things were going I was telling this story and then uh two days later UPS truck pulls up and I got this huge giant package you know I opened it up and it was filled with toilet paper with a sign that says see God does provide life with uh brother Xavier's like living with a saint he's incredible a really holy man and uh the people love them they love him and he's been here uh probably the longest of everybody and uh he knows all these people he knows all the street people and they they love him uh Xavier runs his little uh Jesus kitchen he calls it at night he's up all hours of the night anybody who comes in and he's there Distributing food on his own you know a terrific guy and a great Friar uh it's really a blessing to just live with Xavier uh the only thing you haven't seen yet is the Women's Center but I can't take you there I can't take you there because men aren't allowed to go there uh let's see well there's you're in luck uh there's sister Xavier over there now uh maybe you can tag along with her and she can show you the center I uh beginning my fifth year here in Kensington and before that I was a volunteer for two years with sister Marty who began the Women's Center and I was a college teacher of psychology for 25 years in the northeastern suburbs and uh certainly got a whole new education when it came to be a volunteer at St Francis Inn first thing that struck me about the Women's Center was that Marty was this beautiful Christian humanist and she saw the women waiting in the lines down at the soup kitchen dirty and really down and out miserable ashamed and she wanted to give them an alternative to a day on the street and that's what the Women's Center basically does it's a a safe Sanctuary where they can just get away from their crack houses their abandominiums many of them sleep in abandoned houses and the biggest come on I guess is this shower and a load of wash that's why many people come the first time but then they sense the beauty of what has been created there um there's kind of a home a family atmosphere and many of them grew up in foster care and in very abusive addictive families and never really experienced a real home a safe secure place where you could just be yourself and not look over your back or not be afraid of what was going to happen sometimes when the women come in there they've just been raped they've just been beaten got black eyes they're shaking or sometimes they're just coming down from a high they smoked up all their money and they come in and say give me a hug and that's that's part of the beauty of it but I've taped some of their life histories and they're so depressing I don't transcribe them I transcribed one and that was the end of it but they're beautiful people and many of them get their life back together again and many of them think I'm their mom one of the women today who I think is coming calls me her mom Valentine's Day she gave me two big balloons that said with love to my mom and she gave it to the person to deliver it to me and said she's the only mom I ever knew my name is Julian cruso and I'm a Franciscan volunteer and I've been here for about a year and a half now I'm in my second year when I first was coming into the program I was talking to my friends and whatnot about what I was doing and they couldn't believe what I was doing you know they would say you know how could you feed these people if they're not doing anything for this food you know they're just lazy whatnot and going on and on and trying to explain to them was just impossible and then after I had been here a while and I would go home I'd get the same type of thing and but it just kept on getting deeper the hurt you know they would say you know prostitutes and and addicts are just you know awful people and we go on and on and just it would really hurt me because I consider these people my family now from working with them because they're just we've formed these special relationships and it really means a lot in fact the other day I was just talking to someone and they said to me I was telling them about the Women's Center and what a wonderful place it was and I said yes we have these meetings in the morning talk about self-esteem issues and all this wonderful you know all these wonderful kinds of things and they said to me well are they intelligent enough to have a conversation like that and I just kind of had to hold my breath and I was very I was shocked I didn't know what to say so I I said yes they're very intelligent I said they're just very very smart and they have so much to say and but I was still in awe to think that someone would say this about someone that was so dear to me welcome to the Women's Center that's some of our women over there uh they take great pride in being amongst they as women Thea Bowman was The Franciscan sister who recently died in the early 90s who instilled in people a great love for themselves and for their culture and for other people's ethnic cultures as well where we learned to respect one another and support one another most people run right to the laundry and the sign up list because we take a Max of 10 women a day and depending on where you are on the sign up you may or may not get your clothes into the dryer so this becomes a big thing and it's also where they come to get out of their dirty clothes they're embarrassed sometimes that they smell they haven't had a shower lately so there's robes and towels and a couple showers one here and on the third floor and I have the whole gamut of feminine supplies perfume lotion cosmetics and they start to feel good again once they've fixed their hair once they've had on some talcum powder once they've done something for their dry skin they begin to feel like a woman again and that was the whole part point of what sister Marty had in mind their self-respect and dignity as women as a young young black woman that comes in here every day it's just relatively Pleasant personality for what she's been through but I mean you just consider her life just listen to this she was born of a 12 year old mother during an epileptic seizure that's how she started her life and of course her mother was too young to raise her so her grandmother raised her so when Anne became 11 years old she became pregnant and her family had the baby aborted when Anne was 13 years old the grandmother died and after the funeral the uncle comes into the picture and says you can continue living in the house but your rent will be sexual favors take it or leave it so she left it so she's been walking the streets of Kensington since she was 13 years old so naturally she walks the street at night naturally she's because she doesn't know what love is she's never been loved she's only been abused all her life she takes drugs she does it to kill the pain of her own life it's so horrible she's a Survivor and you know she I don't know if she'll ever be able to get better because her life has been such a Negative experience from day one another favorite place is this for room people just come in relax watch TV and this is Margaret she's kind of a graduate of the Women's Center when I first came as a volunteer Margaret and I used to wait outside the door waiting to get in and we kind of started to bond with each other tiny bit then although she said she didn't like me then and uh over the years we've been through thick and thin she was an abusive relationship out on the streets with the crack and in jail and on parole and now she's my adopted daughter she tells people I'm her mom and she's three years and how many days three years and no three months cleaning October the 28th almost three years coming clean and sober collected her first income tax return check last year and her abusive relationship turned out to be healthier now she stopped drugs her mate stopped alcohol and they both have a job sharing apartment together and I'm very proud of her she's one of my adopted daughters and still going strong and learning to reach out for the higher power Saint Francis sin and God and prayer and this is pure spiritual support we give each other helps us as Thea says to keep on keeping on that's this motto keep on keeping on my name is Katie Sullivan I'm a member of The Franciscan volunteer Ministry one of my experiences here well not one of the more positive ones but definitely one of the more challenging was when I was walking home from our Women's Center one day my friend Noel and I were returning and I was carrying a bag of food I had left over from lunch there and on our way back four teenagers started following us and we're harassing us verbally and assaulting us physically hitting me with a belt and throwing rocks and glass and I just kept walking and my goal was to make it to the store where I knew we could go inside and be safe as it got worse I just I had everything tuned out and I didn't know what they said until Noel told me later and I we made it to the store and we went inside and I was filled with so much anger that there could be so much hatred in kids so young I mean they're only teenagers there's no reason for them to feel that much hatred but my experience that day of being followed like that and assaulted like that gave me a truer understanding of what some of my friends here experience The Prostitute to our bottle stone at them who are called names and are insulted often on a daily basis I I had listened to their stories and sympathize with them but I didn't have an understanding of it until something similar happened to me I've learned that I can't even begin to understand the poverty of the people I ministered to although I say I have a bow of poverty if I say that they can only laugh almost in scorn because I'll never experience the depth of deprivation of these people I have the privilege to serve but I have also learned from them my Brokenness we come to serve them and to help them heal their Brokenness but also to discover and reveal to them their beauty one woman who spends all day long picking up tin cans and all scraps of metal and the old shopping shopping cart she pushes up Kensington Avenue and I remember one day the sun came out after about five days of straight rain and she her name is Cheryl she pushed in the cart and she went by and said Cheryl isn't it great thank God the sun is out she just stopped short and looked at me and said thank God because the sun is out I thank God every day rain or shine because I get another chance you know that she kept right now walking I felt like about that small you know and I'm continually uh being taught lessons by the people that's why it's such a wonderful ministry here it's almost like a retreat because most people think to think about God you have to actually Retreat what the word means to go away from go in the woods or climb a mountain or something but I think Christ is alive right here in Kensington instead of like a spiritual Retreat it's almost like a spiritual attack you go right in it and and you you see the Brokenness of humanity you realize your own Brokenness and then you help your brothers and sisters as as they help you grow in your faith hi my name is Karen Pusha and I've been at St Franciscan now for about five and a half years and one thing that's always struck me about the guests down here and we call the people we serve our guests is how generous they are both with their with their time and their spirit and with the things that they have and what what little they have and with what we give them one incident occurred to me a couple of years ago that that really has stayed with me and that is we were giving out whole Cakes as people were leaving and usually when that happens you can expect a mad rush to the door and people changing their hats and whatnot to try to get extra cakes and this young man who was tall and slim and probably about 25 or 26 and he looked really hungry was leaving and I said oh oh just a minute you get a cake and he looked at me and he said oh I'm not hungry I had a good meal I don't need a cake and I said well what about later and he said well you know my mother always taught me it was a sin to take what you didn't need and he left and I was floored I was just like oh my God how did where did this guy come from and uh he came back the next day and it was the same thing he thanked us for a wonderful meal he didn't take extras he didn't give us a hard time or anything and then he left and when you think that the the guests live from meal to meal it was just remarkable that these people can impress us with how generous they are in thinking of other people one question I'm going to ask God if I see him and if I get a chance to ask questions one of my top five questions will be why wasn't life Fair like why didn't everybody get an equal chance because I realized there's some people in life simply have a bad break in life and others seem to be blessed and it's no fault of their own and I I don't know the explanation for that that's why I think the climate in our society today is such uh that they don't like the poor they want to put the poor under you know put them out of sight or take all benefits and they because I think they really believe that our founding fathers documents that said all men are created equal of course today they to say all men and women are created equal I don't believe that we're all of equal value but we're not equal as soon as a person comes out of their mother's womb they're different some people are good looking and some people aren't which means a lot in our society even though it shouldn't some people have a real sharp intelligence some people have to struggle through school some people have a lot of talent and others just seem to sit there and let the world go by some people have a good set of parents many people today don't and some people are born here in Kensington and some are born in a nice country town in New Hampshire like I was and they have nothing to say about it and it's no fault of their own and I think if a lot of political commentators or columnists or even politicians could come to Saint Francis and sit down for one hour and listen to one life story their whole Viewpoint would be changed all they'd have to say is if I put myself on that person's shoes what would I be like don't bring your good car life in Kensington can be hard at times sometimes it's really depressing every day you have to face watching little kids playing out in this garbage they're hungry you have to watch real people they're sleeping out on these sidewalks in abandoned buildings it can get really frustrating and discouraging I'm one of those people I'm one of those people who can get discouraged and you can get depressed at times I know that every day when you deal with and see all this suffering going on around you that it can get you down not too long ago a few months ago I was in one of those States I was really discouraged I started to question uh what I was doing here I even started doubting my own faith on a Friday night I drove home and I was in that state of mind and I got out of the vehicle and I put the club on and there was an elderly woman sitting on the steps at the soup kitchen she was bundled up because it was cold and she had a blanket on so I asked her if she was okay and she said that she was I was turning to leave and she said Brother Francis she says I know the soup kitchen is closed but if it's possible could you go in and see if there's anything left to eat well I know more wanted to do that than the Man in the Moon I was tired I was down I just wanted to go home and be left alone but I told her I said I don't think there is because there wasn't anything left over at the meal tonight but I'll go in and I'll look I did lo and behold there were two sandwiches left in the refrigerator so I took them and I uh got a cup of milk and I brought them out to her on the step I set the sandwiches on her lap and a cup of milk next to her I said good night now and she says good night brother as I turned I could see out of the corner of my eye this woman looked down at those sandwiches and she blessed herself I couldn't believe it cold outside hungry and the faith that this woman had as I turned I heard a whisper I heard her say thank you Jesus I knew you would provide that's when I took a couple more steps and I lost it I knew who it was it was Jesus and he was in this woman and he was talking to me Pompeii he was telling me Francis I know where you are I know what you're doing and it's okay I'm here and I love you I soaring Like an Eagle I could feel it I could feel Jesus love right inside me [Music] I know Jesus loves me [Music] he loves you well you've heard a lot and you've seen a lot you've seen a lot about our work and about our ministry and our life here in the Kensington section of Philadelphia in the end we're just people like you try and do the best that we can trying to live the gospel trying to follow Jesus in the footsteps of Saint Francis there's a couple of the Friars now over there Michael Duffy you finally finally figured out how to stay warm never turn the heat up over at the friar oh it comes to my buddy this is cheaper let's go home all right let's get out of here on my back we'll see you guys stop over the end [Music] foreign [Music]