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As an idealistic college student, I had all sorts of grandiose ideas about ministering to the poor. They ranged from political action to overseas missions. However, I soon discovered that my gifts do not lie in politics or foreign travel. I’m more comfortable working within familiar structures and programs, as a catechist or liturgical minister.
But it was in just those familiar places that God started to bring our family into intimate contact with God’s poor and with people in whom it’s easy to recognize “the least” of Jesus’ brothers (Matthew 25:40). Now, as I look back more than twenty years later, I’m amazed at the ways we’ve been led by God.
Most of the people in the first RCIA group my husband and I helped sponsor were a lot like us: young parents, college-educated, with life experiences we could relate to. But one candidate who lived in our mixed neighborhood was an African-American single mother. As we got to know her, we felt led to help her out of her deplorable housing situation. We decided to buy a nearby house for her to rent. However, we found that being landlords far exceeded our fix-it…
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