“I just want them to develop a sense of comfort,” he continued, and to know that God is close to them. That’s important, he said, because when one allows God in, “miracles happen.”
Recognizing Christ’s presence and power gives a person – including the chronically homeless – the ability “to take the next step, to go beyond what we feel we can do, knowing that Jesus is walking there right beside us,” Fornelli explained.
Needing Christian hope
Holly Lawson, executive director of the nondenominational Christian Downtown Soup Kitchen on Fourth Street, has seen the homeless find spiritual hope – and then homes.
The Soup Kitchen’s motto is “a full stomach and a hand up in the name of Jesus.” Daily, it serves 350 cups of soup with sandwiches to the hungry – including many homeless.
As to how some become homeless, “there’s obviously some spiritual warfare in their lives,” commented Lawson, who has a background in counseling.
Being displaced from family, losing a job, missing mortgage payments are like “arrows” in life, she said.
“The only thing I know about life is that it’s a battle – everyday, in some way,” Lawson said.
When hard times hit those who are not so well braced by faith or family, the struggles can “consume them, they lose themselves in them,” she added.
Spiritually-speaking, “without a shield, without a sword, without a helmet,” Lawson said, one is vulnerable to addictions, homelessness and a paralyzing hopelessness.
So beyond a hot meal, Lawson said the homeless need Christian hope — specifically, to know that “one, this is temporary and two, you have a better home waiting for you that’s eternal, so in the meantime, hang in there, you are loved, you are cared for.”
Lawson said that by embracing that well-founded hope, clients are freed to work on a new future and pursue sobriety.
For instance, she said, one man, who had been homeless through several Anchorage winters, has just secured an apartment with Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. “Last week, he moved in.”
“For him, it was recognizing that he had too much on his shoulders as a man,” Lawson explained. “He needed to let go and let God.”
Body and soul
The conversation on homelessness must begin with the truth about the human person, explained Dominican Father Dominic DeMaio of Holy Family Cathedral, a parish where many homeless attend Mass.
“As Christians, especially as Catholic Christians, we always consider the human person in his full dimension – mind, body, spirit and emotion,” explained Father DeMaio. “Those are always going to be completely interconnected.”
For years, every Sunday, after Mass, 50-70 homeless people have come to the Catholic cathedral for coffee, doughnuts, companionship – and occasionally, spiritual songs in Yup’ik.
According to parishioner Tim Walsh, who serves the coffee, these homeless are from “every village,” like Barrow and Point Hope. Having worked in the Bush for three decades, Walsh knew some of these men “when they were kids.”
Each work day, about a dozen homeless people visit the church office.
“It’s the candy that brings them in – and the fellowship,” explained receptionist Teri Perez with a smile. She keeps a dish full of sweets at her desk – along with a resource list for food, shelter and clothing.
“I hope they come for the fellowship,” she added earnestly, “because I like their friendship.”
Food, housing and blankets aren’t enough for the homeless, explained Father DeMaio. He believes any approach that does not address “the fullness of the person is never going to completely address the problem.”
There is a need to heal the core spiritual problems, he said – self-hatred, the fear of being unlovable and alienation – that come from broken homes, abuse, disinterest from the world.
“We’re seeking, as Christians and Catholic Christians, communion with one another and communion with God,” Father DeMaio explained. Many of the homeless are “deeply hungering” for that, he added.
The solution, he said, is in “primarily, the encounter with the living Christ in his members.” For instance, Mother Teresa, he said, lived as “Christ to those people who are untouchable.”
“When they start to become touched by others,” he said, “they may start to awaken and realize, ‘Oh, okay, there is the warmth of love. There is God. God does reach out to me.’