On Persimmons, Pearls and Panhandlers: Spiritual Lessons from a New Catholic Worker Community
Mattie Jenkins and Patrick McKenzie, co-founders of Romero Catholic Worker in Wichita, Kansas, share essays from the third volume of their newspaper, "Radix"
Getting to the Roots
The following essays are from the very new Romero Catholic Worker in Wichita, Kansas. These essays were originally published in their newspaper, Radix (the Latin word for “root” and the origin point of the word “radical”). You can subscribe to their newspaper online and learn more about the Romero Catholic Worker at their website here.
To Be Truly Wealthy: Lazarus & the Rich Man
By Patrick McKenzie
Throughout the week, as I’m driving from one place to the next, it isn’t out of the ordinary for me to stop at QuickTrip—as all good Wichitans do. Whether I’m filling up on gas or grabbing a Big Q there is usually an encounter that happens nearly every time I go. Out in front of the store, there will often be someone sitting or standing, leaning against the trash can or fixing a bike. And as I approach, I’ve already played the situation out in my head a few times: “No, sorry, I don’t have any cash,” or “No, sorry, I’m in a rush,” or simply just walk by silently with my head straight forward. Before being asked a single question, I have already prepared my defense.
And it does happen that sometimes I get asked for a cigarette or a couple dollars or a bite to eat, but sometimes I don’t get asked for anything at all.
What is so dreadful about this situation? Especially because some of the time this happens right after I finish up downtown, where there were dozens of people coming up and asking me for things, and I had no problem giving it to them.
There seems to be something about this situation specifically, about walking past a person who is obviously in some sort of need, that speaks to something deeper going on within my own heart. Is it the fear that I will be asked for too much? Even if I gave away all the cash in my wallet, it would probably equal a month's subscription to Netflix. Or is it the fear that I will be asked for something much more difficult to give?
Jesus spoke about this type of situation several times in the Gospels, usually through parables. But the one that is most striking (and most damning for myself, at that) is the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus lays out the setting of the parable, albeit briefly.
We can imagine a large house, decadent and regal, with a gate running around the perimeter. Out in front of the gate lies a man, old and decrepit, covered in oozing sores, face gaunt, with his body barely covered. Filthy dogs run around the yard eating scraps and licking the old man's sores.
Every day, the rich man, dressed in the finest purple linens, would walk past this sad sight with an unmoved heart. Eventually, the old man, Lazarus, dies and is carried up to the Bosom of Abraham by angels. The rich man, too, dies and finds himself in Hades. To the rich man's pleading, Abraham responds, "in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony."
There is a lot to unpack here, even though it is such a short parable. So much so that St. John Chrysostom, one of, if not the most, eloquent Church Fathers, gave seven sermons on it. In his second sermon on this parable, John Chrysostom explains that the rich man was the one who was truly poor and the poor man was the one who was truly rich. This is a common theme in Jesus’ preaching (e.g. the last shall be first, the good Samaritan, the prostitutes and tax collectors entering the kingdom first) to turn things on their head, to upset conventional ideas and practices, to surprise us with such simplicity.
John Chrysostom explains, "the rich man is not the one who has collected many possessions but the one who needs few possessions; and the poor man is not the one who has no possessions but the one who has many desires." It is not difficult to see that those with many possessions are often afflicted with the disease of greed. How can someone always looking for more be truly wealthy? He is always dissatisfied, clinging to what he has in his abundance out of fear of losing it all. Yet the man with few possessions is often content and ready to share because he knows what it means to have nothing.
I was made aware of this phenomenon when I was a Catholic Worker in Houston at Casa Juan Diego. In a city with exuberant wealth and vast mansions, it was often the family in a run-down apartment that was ready and willing to open their home to the stranger. I do not mean to say that there were not those who were well off who did so unseen, I pray and hope there were, but what was apparent was that having fewer possessions enabled one to embrace one's neighbor more readily. For a lack of attachment to physical goods leaves room for a spirit of hospitality.
But what exactly did the rich man in this parable do wrong? What could he be accused of? The rich man was not the one who put Lazarus in his situation. He wasn't the one who stole his belongings and left him destitute, nor did he inflict him with disease. What is the rich man truly guilty of then? John Chrysostom answers this question as follows, "not only the theft of others' goods but also the failure to share one's own goods with others is theft and swindle and defraudation."
He backs up this claim with several pieces of Scripture: Malachi 3:8-10, "The earth has brought forth her increase, and you have not brought forth your tithes; but the theft of the poor is in your houses," and Sirach 4:1, " Deprive not the poor of his living." John Chrysostom begins with the understanding that all that we have is the Lord's and therefore what we have in abundance God allows so that we might give it to the poor, not to hoard it or waste it on superfluous things. Chrysostom says, "For you have obtained more than others have, and you have received it, not to spend it for yourself, but to become a good steward for others as well." With abundance comes the responsibility to steward it well.
We see that to neglect the poor, to spend our excess on needless things, is indeed theft from the poor. We must not be content with gaining our reward in this worldly life or storing up our treasures in barns (or storage units) here on Earth.
But there is something more pressing here that has a greater consequence. For it is not enough to simply know that our greed is theft and that what we have in excess belongs to the poor. This truth must penetrate our hearts. However, if we are like the rich man who had a hardened heart that could not even be penetrated by Lazarus lying at his gate day after day this is all for nothing.
When I walk into QuikTrip, it is not having insufficient funds or lack of time that inhibits me from hearing the cry of the poor, it is my own hardened heart that can not be moved. What is it that hardens our heart so? John Chrysostom in his first sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man says that it is the way we live our lives, especially the way we treat the sabbath, that hardens our hearts. He criticizes the Jews for embracing a 'false-sabbath' and further enslaving themselves to the world: "although they were released from worldly activities, [they) did not attend to spiritual matters, such as self-control, kindness, and hearing the divine Scriptures, but did the opposite, gorging themselves, getting drunk, stuffing themselves, feasting luxuriously". We must not fool ourselves into thinking that the more we have leads to greater freedom.
In his first sermon, John Chrysostom encourages us to live a life of prayer and self-control as Peter encouraged the scattered pilgrims of Asia Minor in his first letter: "Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering." It is in this way that our hearts will be softened and the chains of greed and fear will be untethered, releasing us to love our neighbor.
In his book “The Power of Silence,” Cardinal Robert Sarah recounts the story of a young priest, Angelo Comasri, who sought to encounter Mother Teresa. After some difficulty, Mother Teresa met him at the door of the general house of the Missionaries of Charity. There, she questioned him on how much time he spent in prayer each day. He gave a feeble response, mentioning the Mass and the Breviary as well as the Rosary, but followed up by saying, "Mother, I expected from you instead this question: What acts of charity do you do?" Mother Teresa replied, "Do you think that I could practice charity if I did not ask Jesus every day to fill my heart with his love? Do you think I could go through the streets looking for the poor if Jesus did not communicate the fire of his charity to my heart?" Our hearts must first be softened by the Lord's love and this can only happen through a relationship with him, through prayer. Mother Teresa sent Comasri on his way, saying, "Without God, we are too poor to be able to help the poor!"
Originally published as “To Be Truly Wealthy: Lazarus & the Rich Man” in Volume III of Radix newspaper. Read online here.
Saying “Yes” to Poverty—and Pearls
By Mattie Jenkins
I’ll admit, it is odd to speak of persimmons at this time of year. An iconic Autumn fruit, persimmons are hardly congruent with the freshness of Spring or the tartness of the Summer fruits. Persimmons are comforting, tinged with warmth on the backside of every decadent bite. Nevertheless, I have come to believe that as a symbol of the Kingdom of God, they are eternally in season, waiting just around the corner of our expectations to surprise us.
Let us begin in downtown Wichita, a place where you can find exactly what you would expect and none of what you wouldn’t. Imagine any generic collection of concrete parking lots and window-clad buildings jutting into the sky, a grid of one-way streets and endless stoplights. Every now and then, perhaps an interesting piece of architecture to make your gaze worthwhile (e.g., the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, or the Commodore). While downtown Wichita is by no means an urban nightmare (tame in comparison to megaplexes like Houston or Chicago), it certainly isn’t a nature-lover’s dream.
Way back then, sometime around October, Patrick and I were walking quite intentionally through this soul-numbing concrete sea one afternoon, and talking of the Romero Catholic Worker. Mainly, I was trying to determine if Patrick was feeling as anxious and restless as I was about our lack of a house to start our house of hospitality and a garden to grow our food. His exhortation was said with conviction, but to my exasperated heart it sounded like a platitude: “We just have to trust that God will provide in His time.”
Suddenly, and only because my face was quite literally downcast, I noticed on the ground in front of me a familiar amber-colored smear on the sidewalk. In shock, I stopped walking, but my thoughts picked up where my feet left off: “Is that …? Could it be …? No way …” I craned my neck upward, and sure enough, soaring high above me were the boughs of a persimmon tree, laden with Autumn’s pearls: golden, honey, and rust colored sugar bombs. It was apparent to me even as I began to collect them–pocketing one for every two that I put in my mouth–that this was unbelievable: a persimmon tree, in the middle of downtown Wichita …
Ever since my first encounter with persimmons in Appalachia while I was in college, they have been the hallmark of Autumn, my favorite season. Not an Autumn has gone by that I have not, with dear friends, celebrated its coming with the inaugural consumption of the season’s first persimmon. I had relinquished that this year, another of the “heroic sacrifices” that I would be making for the sake of the Catholic Worker (so I told myself). After all, saying “yes” to one thing—in this case, relocating to the center of the center of the United States—was saying “no” to many other things. And I figured that saying “yes” to God was worth more than a persimmon, even if persimmons were—to me anyway—Autumn’s pearls.
But there I was, taking in with all my senses the undeniable fact that what I had thought was a “no” was not in fact, and that my “yes” had included more in the bargain than I had thought to negotiate for. I could not explain why in tarnation there was a persimmon tree right there, in downtown Wichita, but still, I could see them, I could touch them, I could taste them, I could smell them. This was Providence, and it tasted like persimmons.
And when Providence sets before you something like a persimmon, the only proper response is to dump out whatever you were grasping at with your hands so that you can hold it.
Is this ringing a bell? Doesn’t it sound a bit like an old story, something about a single priceless pearl and a crazy merchant who sold all that he had just so he could have that one? And wasn’t there something about a kingdom, and heaven, too? But what has that got to do with persimmons? If I may be allowed a cheesy comparison, let’s say for now that persimmons and pearls are synonymous. And pearls, like persimmon trees, are found in unexpected places.
Where would you expect to find a pearl? Anything of great price should be kept in a place fitting for it, right? It should be at home among other things of value. So then we should look for pearls in palaces, temples, and sanctuaries. Definitely not in dingy motel rooms, and most assuredly not in the murky depths of my own wounded heart. But that’s where I have found them (like the persimmon tree): where they were least expected to be.
The Expected was my starting point, I suppose. I would not (and most assuredly could not) love people and encounter poverty if I did not begin each day in the sanctuary or the chapel. But inevitably, the nearness of the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty of God in the sanctuary of the parish church has continually led me back to a dingy motel room that has become as familiar to me (if not more) than the sanctuary, because of the amount of time I have spent there. And imagine my astonishment several months ago when those same transcendentals (Goodness, Truth, and Beauty) flooded my heart in that dark, musty motel room. Immediately, I was ready to give up every assumption that I had held dear for the sake of holding onto this. This… What was this? It was the discovery of the beauty and goodness of a human being, a pearl of great price.
In the sanctuary or the chapel, it seems comparatively easy to encounter mercy, because we are led to it. The altars, the vestments, the monstrances, the structure of the building itself are pointing us to the eternal and transcendental. But the same flood of mercy unexpectedly overwhelmed me in the dim lamplight and smoky haze of a motel room, as I beheld the woman sitting on the edge of the bed across from me, as she forgave me for the wounds I had caused in ignorance, as she expressed her resolve to rise again in spite of the endless onslaught of setbacks. In her, Providence had placed before me not a project, not a lesson to be learned or a goal to be accomplished but a soul to remind me where to go looking when I lose sight of Him, when I begin to lose hope in the miniscule, inconsequential acts of ordinary life. When I said “yes” to the Catholic Worker and loving the poor, I didn’t just say “yes” to voluntary poverty and long hours and numerous sacrifices (the heroic and the vapid). I said “yes” to the discovery of pearls in encountering human souls.
I had so readily taken for granted the pearl that inhabited that room because she was at the time homeless, because she was sick and weak and given to crankiness and criticism. But underneath all of that? Her resilient faith, her near-indefatigable spirit, the sincerity in her motherly advice to me about anything from love to gardening. Here was a soul, hardy and vigorous though refined by fire, and I had happened to discover it. Or it had discovered me.
Our restless hearts are always searching, stubbornly holding onto the belief that there is something precious just beyond what we can see. This is Hope; flowers grow through the cracks of sidewalks, Love persists in wounded hearts, through the darkness of Good Friday pierces the light of Easter. On the edge of a gravelly, urban parking lot grows a persimmon tree and in a musty hotel room stays a priceless pearl.
Originally published as “Of persimmons and pearls” on May 21, 2015, Romero Catholic Worker website. Republished with permission.