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| Pope Francis blesses the sculpture"Jesus the homeless" at the Vatican in this December 2013 photo. (Photo: CNS/L'Osservatore Romano) |
“FOR I was hungry and you gave me food... a stranger and
you welcomed me… naked and you clothed me… (Mt. 25:35-36).
For the homeless, a little food to stave off their hunger
and a roof over where to lay their head, especially on a cold winter night
matters a lot. But having a good shower to keep them clean and smelling nice is
a great boost to their dignity as well.
The Vatican thought of installing showers in the tourist
washrooms just outside St. Peter's Square so the homeless may be able to wash
themselves. The inspiration came upon the papal almoner, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, who recently encountered a homeless man at St. Peter's Square. The
monsignor learned that it was the man's 50th birthday so he invited him for a
meal in a nearby restaurant. But the man declined, explaining that the restaurant
would probably not allow him because he smelled bad. (But another report said
the archbishop prevailed on the man they ate in a Chinese restaurant.)
Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, who is in charge of helping the poor, thought it would be a good idea to
install three showers in the public restrooms. So with the approval of the
pope, he commissioned that showers be installed in the existing public
restrooms in St. Peter’s Square. The archbishop also urged nearby parishes in
Rome to do the same so the homeless would have a place where they could go and
wash themselves.
In our main convent in Pasay, poor people usually come
knocking at the gate to ask for food or other forms of assistance. There is an
elderly sister who is in charge of assisting the poor, giving them food or
clothes or sometimes referring them to the local government's social welfare
program. Once in a while, when she sees the person looks like he or she is in
need of a good scrub, she would encourage the person to take a bath at a
secluded part in the compound, and afterwards she gives the person a change of clean
clothes and food to eat.
There is no denying the fact that having gone under the
shower makes one feel good; all of us do. It is the cleansing effects of the
water that does wonders. It has a healing and therapeutic effect not only on
the physical level but spiritual as well.
Being homeless is an affront to the dignity of a person.
It makes the person feel uprooted and insecure. There are a hundred of reasons
why a person becomes homeless. I have read so many stories of people who have experienced
this deprivation. Some did by choice, but many driven by circumstances they can’t
control.
During my first visit in Canada many years ago, it
surprised me to see some homeless people on the streets. I was thinking then
that first world countries did not have homeless people.
In poor countries like the Philippines, it is so common
to see homeless people littering the streets or living under the bridge. So it
comes as a shock, but also an eye opener for me that homelessness is an issue
that is very much real in North America and even in Europe.
Since Francis became pope, the role of the papal almoner
has become more visible in the life of the homeless that populate the city of
Rome. The poor have a special place in the heart of this pope. Of course, all
the other popes before him had also the same concern. However, Pope Francis,
who had been particularly close to the underprivileged when he was still the
archbishop of Argentina, has made it especially clear that he would be close to
the poor, both in the material and spiritual sense of the word.
In his apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel”,
the pope decried what he calls the “economy of exclusion and inequality” that
relegates the poor to the margins of society.
“How can it be that it is not a news item when
an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock
market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand
by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of
inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the
survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence,
masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work,
without possibilities, without any means of escape.
“Human
beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded.
We have created a ‘throw away’ culture which is now spreading. It is no longer
simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion
ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we
live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its
disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not
the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers’.” (EG, 53)
Some of us, (myself included) sometimes become immune to the sights
of homeless people around us, that they become invisible before our eyes. If the
same indifferent attitude still afflicts us, it is perhaps about time that we
have to change our perspective and look at these brothers and sisters “up close
and personal.” Many of us may not have the financial means to help them out
(although help can be done in many ways, not necessarily financial), we can at
least recognize their existence. I believe the best thing we can do for them is
to acknowledge that they do exist, deserving of every ounce of dignity
befitting any human being.
"Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (Mt. 25:40)
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