In a two-part series on National Catholic Reporter, John Dear, SJ writes about his current experience as a short-term volunteer at Kelly Avenue Catholic Worker house in Half Moon Bay, California.
In part one (available in full here), Dear quotes Mennonite volunteer Katerina Friesen as she explains what motivates her involvement there:
I came to the Catholic Worker because, as a follower of Jesus, I wanted to learn how to live a different way of life…. The Catholic Worker tradition of resisting war and serving the poor made sense to me, and it’s turned out to be a really liberating experience. Now, when I see a homeless person, I feel free to talk with him or her, to ask what they need rather than walking past or feeling afraid. And I used to be bound by anxiety about my life, but now I see how my needs are taken care of even as I help care for other people’s needs.
In part two (available here), Dear reflects on how he sees Jesus’ nonviolent vision in action at the Catholic Worker house, including further adventures with the same volunteer. He concludes with the following anecdote:
One morning, for example, at 5 a.m., as we loaded up 20 crates of vegetables into the back of the pickup truck for the soup kitchen, Katerina realized she had lost the big mound of keys, some 25 keys to everything — the house, the soup kitchen and the trucks. We had a spare key to the other truck, so I moved most of the crates to that truck while Katerina searched the house again, going over every inch for those keys.
By now we were late for the soup kitchen and panicking. That was when I told Katerina — the young Mennonite — that she might consider becoming Catholic. If she were Catholic, I said, she would know to pray to St. Anthony like this: “St. Anthony, we need those keys right now! Immediately!”
She looked at me like I was crazy, and we both laughed. I turned around to reach into the back of the pickup truck and there, on the top of a huge pile of organic lettuce leaves, sat the 25 keys. They might as well have dropped from heaven! We laughed out loud and felt overcome with joy, faith and hope. The soup kitchen volunteers enjoyed hearing about our escapade with St. Anthony, too.
“All are welcome, all are welcome.” That’s the motto of our Catholic Christian life. “No more violence. No more fear. No more despair. No more anger. No more hate. No more hunger. No more greed. No more war. No more nuclear weapons. All are welcome into the new life of peace, love and nonviolence.”
That’s the message I heard at the Catholic Worker. It’s also the greeting that the nonviolent Jesus will say to each one of us some day. It’s a message we all need to hear, and it’s one worth living and even singing about.