Ralph had been the facility director at his home parish for 15 years. He had grown up in the parish and had always been good with his hands and machinery. He had worked as a volunteer at the parish through high school and college helping with grounds clean-up and some basic maintenance at painting parties or window washing days but then got busy with life after he moved away for work. He had moved back into the parish after getting married and having kids because he wanted his kids to grow up with the upbringing that he had had. He got back into volunteering and eventually was offered the job as facility manager after the long-time facilities guy retired.
His was at an inner-city parish and homelessness was very prevalent. At first, he had tried to be as kind as possible but after having a few bad run ins he started to get a harder edge which eventually crystalized into open contempt for the homeless community. He recognized that he didn’t like the feeling but didn’t really know what to do. He joined Cursillo in an attempt to grow in his faith and it was here that he faced the largest obstacle in his faith life. His Cursillo group had volunteered at a local soup kitchen and had asked all the members to participate. Ralph was super angry about it but wanted to follow through and so he begrudgingly went.
The first week he was surprised that not everyone who walked in had the same “appearance” as the homeless he had run into at his parish. In fact, he wouldn’t have even known some of them were homeless if they hadn’t told him so themselves. Many of them had jobs and worked hard but still couldn’t make ends meet. Almost immediately Ralph knew that he would have to do a lot of praying about this. About the sixth time, he volunteered Ralph had gotten comfortable enough with some of the patrons that he sat down to dinner with them, and he was blown away by how spiritual many of them were. He had to admit that he still wasn’t completely sure that the “Angels” they saw over people weren’t a symptom of some mental illness, but he knew for sure that the peace these people portrayed spoke to some interior contentment that he wished he had in his own life. Whether they were mentally ill or not he knew that these people had something to offer him.
With all this Ralph recognized that his outlook at work was starting to change and he was kinder with everyone around him, including the homeless people who he had to move along from the doorways and alcoves. He was finding more peace himself and he was starting to look forward to helping at the soup kitchen. He was glad that he had pushed past his initial hesitancy to even volunteer. He kept telling himself it is amazing how God works.