The unrest of Christ

My first job out of college was teaching at a Catholic school in a small town.

I was at that point in life -- barely 22 -- when I was questioning my faith. But something about the music and joy of the weekly Masses in the school gym called to me. And the young priest who offered Mass challenged me. "The peace of Christ be with you," he would say, adding, "And may the unrest of Christ be with you."

What did that mean? It took me a while to realize that the missing nugget of my faith quest was encapsulated in those words.

That unrest of Christ surfaced in me recently when I stumbled upon an amazing story in the Nov. 14 issue of Esquire magazine.

"My Life as a Homeless Man in America, A Firsthand Account of What Homelessness in America is Really Like," is the compelling story of Patrick Fealey's struggle.

From the first paragraph, in which you meet Fealey in a portable potty on a brutally cold and windy night, his impressive writing skills have you hooked.

Why is a man with such skills homeless? He is open about the mental breakdown he experienced several years ago. He persisted, for a while, in successful freelance work for publications like the Boston Globe and Reuters, but eventually illness and the effects of the menu of drugs necessary to keep him alive caught up with him.

Today, he lives out of his car, subsists on social security disability, and continues writing on his "desk," an overturned guitar. Pictures accompany the piece: a rugged face covered in stubble, rumbled hair, clothing that gets laundered infrequently. Let's be honest. If we saw him on the street, we'd probably avoid him.

And therein lies the problem: People without housing are invisible to most, and often judged unfairly when noticed. A dentist seems to suspect Fealey of seeking opioids, even though he presents terrible pain and a grossly swollen jaw.

Unsmiling staff in agencies place him on housing waiting lists he might be on for years. He feels threatened in a homeless shelter where he goes for a shower.

"The despair in the shelter is contagious," Fealey writes.

One day, a woman offers him half of her meatball sub, a glorious departure from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eaten daily from his trunk.

But she was, said Fealey, "the only person in six months to offer help."

Two positives: Fealey has a dog, and an emotionally supportive girlfriend. But despite her full-time position as a clerk at a hotel, she couldn't afford her rent and moved in with her parents.

This is the America in which we live: the homeless population expands, and affordable housing, even for the employed, shrinks. What will this look like in four years?

I know many folks whose children went to Catholic schools. One of them, a kid who went to a Jesuit university, loved the social justice advocacy at his institution. But when he got out, he couldn't find the same enthusiasm for action in parishes. There are many reasons young people have left the church -- abuse and cover-up being high on the list. But for many, the church as an institution has not, since the days of civil rights advocacy, answered Christ's call to be proactive in addressing many major social issues of our time.

I'm not talking about charity. We're good at that. I'm talking about change.

Christ was consistently with those on the margins. As a church, as parishes, as individuals, if we are not on those margins, we're not being faithful. We need to start feeling some unrest.