Working with gangs and housing people with no home in the church building etc. It drew a lot of attention and a lot of threats and criticism to this Priest in California. Can't help but remind me of how many people are in the building on Sunday for themselves, and their own comfort.... no real heart to help with anything messy in the world.
"It was at about this time a man drove by the church and stopped to talk to me. He was Latino, in a nice car, and he arrived at some comfortable life and living. He knew I was the Pastor. He waxed nostalgic about having grown up in the projects and pointed to the church and said he had been baptized and made his first communion there.Then he takes in the scene all around him. Gang members gathered by the bell tower, homeless men and women being fed in great numbers in the parking lot. Folks arriving for the AA and NA meetings and the ESL classes.It's a Who's Who of Everybody Who Was nobody. Gang members, drug addict, homeless, undocumented. This man sees all this and shakes his head, determined and disgusted, as you to say "tsk tsk"."You know", he stays, "This used to be a church."I mount my high horse and say, "You know, most people around here think it's finally a church." Then I ride off into the sunset.(Tattoos on the Heart. Gregory Boyle. pg 73)
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