Orange County Catholic Worker

“The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can’t beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they’re defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We’re the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don’t see the ants and don’t know what we’re doing. They’ll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money, and we resist with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time.” ~ Utah Philips

California Bishops Urge Officials to Shepherd Those in Homeless Encampments into Prop. 1 Mental Health and Housing Programs

July 26, 2024

The California Catholic Conference of Bishops Executive Committee released the following statement regarding California Governor Gavin Newsom’s call for cities to begin clearing homeless encampments:

“The continuing human tragedy of the homeless epidemic in California does not have an easy solution. The Catholic Church in California has been a staunch advocate and resource for unhoused populations, providing both emergency shelter and pathways to permanent housing. Our unhoused brothers and sisters must be treated with respect in keeping with their human dignity. It is a tragedy that people live in roadside encampments. It is a tragedy that mental health and substance abuse needs are not met.

“As Gov Newsom calls for the clearing of homeless encampments, the CA bishops urge, in the strongest terms, the dignified and respectful removal of homeless encampments and concurrently desire that the unhoused who are being displaced are shepherded into the mental health or housing programs that Gov. Newsom has championed and that the voters approved with the passage of Prop. 1 in March.

“The greatest travesty would be for those whose camps are removed to be then left in this hot climate without shelters or to become incarcerated because of their forced transiency.”

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me...” (Mt. 25: 35).

Source: https://cacatholic.org/news/california-bishops-statements/california-bishops-urge-officials-to-shepherd-those-in-homeless-encampments-into-prop-1-mental-health-and-housing-programs/

The ephemeral art of care is your legacy. No one will remember what you wore. Or even what you wrote, to be real honest. The money you made will feel complicated—whether it wasn’t enough or too much. But they will remember how you cared for them—your hands weaving their braid before bed, your kiss on their sweaty forehead, your voice lifted alongside theirs while you sing “Blackbird” in the car while driving along the Pacific Ocean and marveling at the sunshine. Even if your children grow long, spindly limbs and leave you in the dust, even if your father’s brain breaks and he grows ever quieter and sweeter, the care never dies. That’s your towering skyscraper, your giant abstract sculpture, your Nobel Peace Prize. Your grandest ambition will come true; at your funeral they’ll say, “She paid attention. She knew me. She laughed a lot and delighted in life, even when it was hard. She cared.” And that will be the whole damn thing. -Courtney Martin

“Our lives are touched by those who lived centuries ago, and we hope that our lives will mean something to people who won’t be alive until centuries from now. It’s a great ‘chain of being,’ and I think our job is to do the best we can to hold up our small segment of the chain.”

—Dorothy Day

Christ’s Room Jeffrey Wald writes about his family’s Christ Room, a place for ambassadors of Jesus who might come knocking.

‘I’ve never seen so much vitriol’: activist Paul Boden on America’s homelessness crisis Leading voice demanding rights for the unhoused discusses the history of homelessness and where the US can go from here

“Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is a right and it is a duty.”

–St. Oscar Romero

Mutual aid leads to mutual confidence, the first condition for courage.

- Peter Kropotkin

"The poverty of our century is unlike that of an other. It is not, as it was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied, but written off as trash."

—John Berger

Thank you. Bishop John H. Taylor, and the Episcopal Church community, for modeling what all churches can and should do to live the gospel.

-- Today at 10am, a groundbreaking ceremony will launch construction of Santa Angelina senior housing community, featuring 65 affordable units, at Blessed Sacrament Episcopal Church in Placentia.

Bishop John Harvey Taylor will join church and civic leaders for the program hosted on the grounds of Blessed Sacrament Church, 1314 North Angelina Drive, Placentia. The public is invited. The project is an example of effective leveraging of church land to help address the region's housing crisis while also increasing a congregation's financial sustainability.

The new community is being developed by National CORE, a property planning and management company; Blessed Sacrament Church; and Episcopal Communities & Services, with support from the Diocese of Los Angeles, the Hope through Housing Foundation and the County of Orange.

The new development will provide 65 affordable apartment homes to seniors, ages 62 and up, who earn less than 60% of the area median income (AMI). Twenty-one apartment homes will be reserved as permanent supportive housing for unhoused or at-risk seniors.

Residents of Santa Angelina will live in an engaged, service-enriched village linked to the adjacent church and surrounding community through a network of paseos, plazas, and courtyards. A 1,500 square-foot community center will serve as a hub for events, supportive services, and programs. Other onsite amenities include laundry facilities and outdoor recreation space.

Concurrently, the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer today remembers the Rev. Barrett Van Buren (rector of Blessed Sacrament, Placentia) on the anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood in 2014.

Image: Artist's rendering, Santa Angelina housing, Placentia, Calif.

"Unlike earlier periods of widespread homelessness and displacement, such as during the recession of 2008, what we’re witnessing today is an emergency born less of poverty than prosperity—occurring not despite but precisely because of the economic boom."

The New American Homeless Housing insecurity in the nation’s richest cities is far worse than government statistics claim. Just ask the Goodmans.

Happy Feast Day of Saint Clare!

Clare expresses her love for poverty, not a desire to be destitute, but rather a desire to be more conformed to Christ in the way he chose poverty for the sake of solidarity and relationship with all humanity. Furthermore, this choice is a reason for joy because it leads one to discover right relationship with God and all His creation.

How do these words written by Clare speak to us at this point in our spiritual journey?

"O blessed poverty,
Who bestows eternal riches
On those who love and embrace her!

O holy poverty,
God promises the kingdom of heaven
and, in fact, offers eternal glory and a blessed life
to those who possess and desire you!

O God-centered poverty,
whom the Lord Jesus Christ
Who rules and now rules heaven and earth,
Who spoke and things were made,
condescended to embrace before all else!

The foxes have dens, He says, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man, Christ, has nowhere to lay His head (Mt. 8:20), but bowing His head gave up His spirit (Jn. 19:30).

If so great and good a Lord, then, on coming into the Virgin's womb, chose to appear despised, needy, and poor in this world (2 Cor. 8:9), so that people who were in utter poverty want and have absolute need of heavenly nourishment might become rich in Him by possessing the kingdom of heaven, be very joyful and glad (Hab 3:18)! Be filled with remarkable happiness and a spiritual joy!

St. Clare of Assisi. The First Letter to Agnes of Prague 15-21, trans. by Regis Armstrong in Clare of Assisi: Early Documents (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications), 36-37.

Today we remember St. Phocas the Gardener. He is the patron of farmers, fieldworkers, agriculture, and gardeners. He was a man connected to his land and to his neighbor, and who understood ecology in the deep sense of not living just for oneself but for all. He was both a bishop and a simple farmer, and he devoted everything he grew to be given to the poor.

He is also the patron of hospitality. When soldiers came looking for him to execute him for being a Christian, he welcomed them with open arms, and practicing the command of Christ to love one's enemies, he fed them and treated them as Christ himself. The soldiers did not realize that their host was the same Phocas they were to execute, and St. Phocas promised them that he would help them find their target.

When Phocas revealed himself to them, they were reluctant to kill him. Phocas, however, refused to fight them or to hinder their duty, and instead invited the soldiers to do what they were there to do, offering his neck. For this he was martyred.

St. Phocas is also the patron of sailers. There is an old sailing custom whereby at each meal, a portion is set aside called 'St. Phocas portion.' This portion is sold and the money collected is donated to the poor whenever port is reached. In this way, Phocas' love for strangers, enemies, the poor, the land, and his neighbors continued to extend even past his death.

Holy Phocas, pray for us!

Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships. God is Love. —Dorothy Day

Obviously, while I love all, I must, like Christ, have a special love for the poor. At the last judgement, we shall all be judged by the treatment we have given to Christ, to Christ in the person of those who are hungry or thirsty, who are dirty, wounded, and oppressed.

Dom Helder Camara

What to Read to Know Dorothy Day Better COMMENTARY: From Day’s autobiography, ‘The Long Loneliness,’ to her letters, this list ‘is a beginning for all of us’

Archbishop says US has ‘made guns as idols’ after Texas school shooting An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, killing at least 18 children, one teacher and injuring others, officials said. The gunman died at the scene.

Quote of the Week:

“Nobody nowadays thinks that Jesus was a political activist concerned with political power, but the people who did have political power, the temple priesthood and the Roman colonial authorities, were very concerned about him: they knew that he was a threat, they had him crucified because he was a threat. Do not imagine that when the world sees how these Christians love one another, it will be lost in admiration. When it sees how these Christians love one another, the world usually goes for it’s gun. As Jesus promised: the world will hate you. I’m talking of course, of the real love that expresses itself in action, not in inane cheerfulness, or a feeling of benevolence. Of course every society is some attempt by human beings to live together in friendship, and cooperation, and to this extent is a good and God-given thing. The trouble is that we build friendship with some at the expense of others. The democracy of Athens floated on a sea of slaves. The wealthy make a society in which there is a kind of friendship and cooperation but a society from which the poor are excluded - that is why they are poor. And because they are excluded they have to be kept down, kept in their place, by fear and lies and force. The precarious stability of ‘civilization as we know it ‘would be profoundly threatened by a serious outbreak of love.”

~Herbert McCabe O.P. , “God, Christ, and Us” p. 12-13

Icons:
“Christ: Swords into Plowshares”

Prints: kellylatimoreicons.com

The daily battle to keep people alive as fentanyl ravages San Francisco’s Tenderloin Street teams focused on harm reduction offer Narcan, meals and other support to those experiencing homelessness and addiction

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." -Saint Mother Teresa

WORD FOR THE DAY - https://bit.ly/wordfortheday

He has shown strength with his arm;
​he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

It is not from your own property that you give to the poor. Rather, you make return from what is theirs. For what has been given as common for the use of all, you have appropriated to yourself alone. The earth belongs to all, not to the rich. Therefore you are paying a debt, not bestowing a gift.
+St Ambrose of Milan

after the war
we will all wring our hands
and wonder how humans
could show so little humanity
to each other

after the war
we will tie ribbons on trees
and shake our heads whenever we
see pictures of hospitals that were
bombed into inhospitable ruins

after the war
we will race to write the history book
and wonder out loud how for years we
ignored the sounds of tyrants smacking
their bloodthirsty lips in anticipation

after the war
we will build a monument for the dead
and list every single name that was suddenly
cut short by the sound of a chorus of popping
long guns

after the war
we will all take turns condemning evil
and punish those who committed atrocities
while ignoring the weeds of hate growing
in our own backyard

after the war
we will all gather in pews to thank God for the ceasefire and sing ancient psalms of community until it's time for us to go home and watch a horror movie where one person tortures another person for entertainment

after the war
we will hug all of the refugees and remind them
to be grateful as we put them on planes and buses to go live out the rest of their lives amid the smoldering ruins of their former home

after the war
I will absolve myself for the role in the culture of death I played and write an easy poem filled with platitudes about love instead of doing the hard work of transforming my life into an instrument of peace that plays every single day

the lessons we learn
after the war
are always ones we have
to relearn again and again

we keep having to attend
remedial school for humans

the peace we strive for
after the war
always comes too late
for those who died

the outrage we feel
after the war
seems to last only as long
as the next Kardashian news story

the unity we seek
after the war
usually dissolves the moment
we go on Twitter to talk politics

the empathy we want to sow
after the war
never survives the first frost
of our indifference

Oh, God,
please let me
be as fierce
an agent of peace
before the war
as I am during and after it

Oh, God,
please help me
be an advocate for
peace before the first
artillery shell hits a school

let me carry this
desire to work
for the end of all war

before the next one begins

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)

A New Study Shows Older Adults Are The Fastest-Growing Population Among People Experiencing Homelessness The United Way of Greater Los Angeles shows this group makes up one-quarter of the county's unhoused population. However, a large portion of adults over 50 are experiencing homelessness for the first time.

‘At the Last Judgment I will not be asked whether I satisfactorily practiced asceticism, nor how many bows I have made before the divine altar. I will be asked whether I fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick, and the prisoner in his jail. That is all I will be asked.’

+St Maria of Paris

Nothing is as pleasing to God as to live for the common good. For this end, God gave us speech, hands, feet, strength of body and mind, and understanding, that we might use all these things, both for our own salvation and for our neighbor’s advantage.

–Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 78 on Matthew

“There is a kind of fasting which is not bodily, a spiritual self-discipline which affects the soul; this abstinence [is] from evil, and it was as a means to this that our abstinence from food was prescribed. Therefore I say to you: Fast from evil-doing, discipline yourselves from covetousness, abstain from unjust profits, starve the greed of mammon, keep in your houses no snatched or stolen treasure. For what use is it to touch no meat and to wound your brother by evil-doing? What advantage is it to forgo what is your own and to seize unjustly what is the poor’s? What piety is it to drink water and thirst for blood, weaving treachery in the wickedness of your own heart? Judas himself fasted with the eleven, but since he did not curb his love of money, his fasting availed him nothing to salvation…”
— St. Gregory of Nyssa

🙏From the Laudato Si Movement we join the Pope's request for peace in and throughout the world