Since serving the poor is an absolute must for Catholics, I have been on the lookout for works of mercy I can actually do.
Last year, I noticed that I didn’t have the skills my friends in Atchison, Kansas, do — they were fixing houses and building beds, while I was delivering sandwiches (occasionally) but that was about it.
Feeling convicted about my lack of service last year, I prayed for God to send me a work of mercy I could actually do. He answered my prayer almost immediately. An email reported that men were needed to sleep in a temporary shelter with the homeless.
I may not have skills, but I do have a lifelong history of sleeping. “I’m in,” I emailed.
In fact, I even once proposed a religious order of sleepers.
I was one of a group of candidates at a religious house when new guys arrived from a time zone far away. During the whole first day they were there, they slept. We were kind and understanding to them; it was nighttime where they were from, after all. But then, when they spent a second whole day sleeping, our patience wore thin.
I created a poster meant to poke gentle fun of them. “Join our New Congregation!” it said. “The Brothers of Jesus Asleep in the Boat. Our charism: When things get tough, we sleep.”
It was a joke, but it also made a certain amount of sense, and one of the priests even preached about it. The Gospels report that, as the apostles crossed the Sea of Galilee, they were hit by a nighttime storm. Jesus slept peacefully through the squall, until they woke him up in a panic. He rebuked them for their lack of faith and quieted the storm with a word.
Don’t lose hope if Jesus seems to be asleep in our life, said the priest. He won’t abandon us.
I didn’t expect sleeping would one day become a real apostolate for me.
The Cana House of Hospitality in Atchison was created by Benedictine College faculty families. They got permission from local officials to use it as a temporary shelter when the temperatures dropped dangerously.
One man proved invaluable to the project: A tall, elaborately tattooed man who went by a Native-American style nickname. Let’s call him “Journeyman.”
He had been homeless, living on the bluffs of the Missouri River in land technically owned by the Abbey, when Brother Angelus discovered and befriended him. Journeyman was able to move up into better housing, but he knew the few homeless people in Atchison well.
When the temperatures dropped, Journeyman went to the places they lived and told them to come to the house. We didn’t promise meals, but Journeyman had a George Forman grill and a knack for making great food from few ingredients, so he did.
Sleeping isn’t always as easy as it looks.
We slept in the house, which had an okay, but not great, furnace, and two cots. On the first night, Journeyman told me about his travels, which were extensive; his faith, which was surprising; and his method of keeping warm in a tent, which was fascinating. He uses garbage bags, newspapers, a candle and a clay pot.
Our other companions weren’t as chatty.
One seemed to enjoy sitting and listening to us talk, maybe picking up pointers, and another sat in the corner and listened to headphones, occasionally speaking back to whatever he was listening to — including at various points in the middle of the night.
I did sleep, though. Just like Jesus.
My wife, April, compares this and other apostolates in Atchison to the “little boats” of Dunkirk that came to the rescue of British soldiers in World War II. I love that.
In the story of Jesus asleep in the boat, Mark reports that Jesus told the crowds parables about faith, then invited them across the sea, and that when he crossed with the apostles “other boats were with them.” So, from the very beginning, Jesus envisioned not just the “barque of Peter,” but a flotilla of domestic churches and their little boats traveling alongside it.
And, from the very beginning, Jesus led by sleeping. That’s an example I take to heart.
