By Alexis Brouillette,
Lincoln Outreach Coordinator
Working at the front desk and in the role of Outreach Coordinator at Catholic Social Services, you truly are the hands and feet of Christ, but also the heart and shoulder and ears and… I could go on, but you get the point! I never know what is going to happen in my day, or who I am going to meet and where the conversation will go.
I start my day with a prayer, offering to God all of the people I meet, all of the conversations I have and all of the struggles I encounter throughout the day A prayer I have recently been saying is called Radiating Christ, and it is affiliated with St. Teresa of Calcutta, who is the patron saint of Catholic Social Services this year.
“Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine: it will be You shining on others through me. Let me thus praise You in the way You love best: by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.”
This prayer embodies what I strive to do within outreach ministry at CSS, which is to share Christ’s love, light and hope to the homeless and poor. To bring Him into every encounter so that each person may be loved and known. I want to create a safe place for people to share their hearts, their sufferings and their joys. Oftentimes, I’m not even the one to bring faith up in the conversation.
Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Amir. He is homeless and for one reason or another, unable to stay at the mission. He has a deep curiosity for the faith and wants to receive more of Christ in his life. One day we were talking and he said, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus there, everything is Jesus here. Why? Why is everything Jesus?”
I explained how we are a Catholic organization and why Jesus is important to us as Catholics; how Jesus came to earth to redeem our suffering and bring us to God through His death and resurrection. The conversation then moved on to why he couldn’t eat the “white circle thing” during Church so I was able to explain how we truly believe that the “white circle thing” is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, present in the Eucharist. It’s not just a symbol, but Christ fully present in the Sacrament.
Then Amir shared about his faith background as he grew up in India and how he has searched for God in many ways throughout his life. He was familiar with Mother Teresa and her love and care for the poor.
“But, what is love?” was his next question.
Wow, he was asking some tough questions! How would you describe love? What is love?
In my mind, I was thinking, ‘well, I can just look up a definition or I could reflect on what love means to me.’
How have I received love from others? From God? How have I loved others? What is love? You would think it would be easy to answer this question but there are so many ways to describe love. Love is a sacrifice of willing the good of another even when it is difficult. Love is good and beautiful, messy and hard all at the same time. Love is being present and seeing Christ in the other. Sharing Christ with them.
Each day, I get to share Christ’s fragrance, His love, with each person I meet. Christ, shine through me and be in me so that they may feel Your presence in my soul.
