Religion & Homelessness ...

Father Alexander Sherbrooke, Rev'd Jim McCartney, and Sister Innocentia, are among the good religious people in Britain today who work closely with the problem and condition of the homeless on almost a daily basis.
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Father Alexander and his magnificent volunteers run the Tuesday evening suppers for the homeless at St. Patrick's Church which is situated at London's Soho Square. The Rev'd Jim McCartney is the chief executive of The National Voice of T.H.O.M.A.S. UK. Based at Lancashire's Blackburn, where the organization provides shelter and detox programs for the homeless. While Sister Innocentia is Superior of Blessed Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity at St. George's Road at Elephant & Castle. The charity operates both a male and a female hostel that is heavily housing the Polish and Eastern European homeless in the national capital of England. I personally know Father Alexander and Sister Innocentia and their good works at first hand. I have not had the pleasure thus far in meeting Rev'd Jim ... But I read his informative magazine called "edges" whenever I can found it ...
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Establishment religion takes a big back seat in England thesedays. The Church of England can blame solely itself for its declining church membership and public indifference toward its
bishops and clergy. The Anglican Church, especially in London, is no longer a white and native church for the English!! Rather the Africanization of the Church of England is clearly evident
on Sunday morning at where African immigrants oftentimes outnumber local white English parishioners by fifty per cent or more. While the white Anglican clergy is still very much intacted at the diocesan and parish levels, the laity and congregation is becoming more and more like Black Africa. As for our Catholic friends, they should note that England is now for the first
since before the Reformation a majority Roman Catholic nation. Such is due to the huge influx
of Poles and other Catholic nationals taking up permanent shop in England as new European Union citizens so entitled to stay ... By the way, Poles last year sent FIVE BILLION BRITISH POUNDS to their native country. No wonder it's now called "The Polish Pound!!" Soon they'll own all of bloody England ... won't they?
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Let me get back to the bigger issue of religion and homelessness. If it wasn't for religious folkz
like Father Alexander, Rev'd Jim, and Sister Innocentia, I suspect the secular groups focussed on the homeless would have even more of a problem housing those in need of shelter, food,
and clothing ... And while such secular groups are useful and needed, I find a kind of emptiness in what many of them do. Expressions and acts of faith are far more important to me than all the fancy programs of secular remedy to the homeless and needy. After all is said and done, I always see a moral and emotional void in those touched by such non-religious based entities.
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Take The Big Issue, for example, that is strictly secular to its core. It professes no faith or religiosity of any sort in its weekly publication or fundraising aims. I see it regularly
in the faces, lifestyles, and conversations with a wide assortment of Big Issue staffers and vendors. Many of them them love nobody including themselves because they practice no faith nor believe in divine good ... Too many of them are simply prayerless and godless I'm sorry to say. And so I see their emptiness in their eyes and their body language all too often ... That
doesn't mean to say that many are not good people because many of them are. But they would be even better people if they expressed and acted more by faith than by popular culturalism
and mass taste ...
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Then there is The Connections at St. Martin's at Trafalger Square. I stayed there for awhile and at that time we all slept on chairs only! No beds or cots were provided to their homeless clients.
While the food was very good, they wouldn't let anybody enter until 10:00pm at night and then yank us out by 7:00am in the morning no matter what ... Worse still, at least to me, was that The Connections gave no outward indication of its Anglican roots and its religious base. Where we slept there was not even a cross of any kind or any religious symbols whatsoever. It seemed almost embarrassed and ashamed to say The Connections is Anglican!! Yes, interfaith too!! But
still Anglican and be proud of the fact and identification with the church ... Look at Father Alexander and Sister Innocentia and they have no qualms declaring openly their Catholic faith to those they serve among the homeless and needy. Why should they? And, so why should The Connections hide its religious identification to those they so admirably serve?
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For now, I'll say no more about religion and homelessness. But I'll return to the topic whenever I see fit to do so ... Faithfully, Monty. +Vigil of St. Bartholomew The Apostle, 2oo7.
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While writing here abit about religion, I just noticed in The Daily Telegraph the news story by Caroline Davies of how Princes William and Harry have requested special prayers to mark the 10th Anniversary death of their beloved mother Diana, Princess of Wales. It appears that the
Archbishop of Canterbury -- Rowan Douglas Williams -- himself composed two prayers to be said at Anglican congregations before and at the August 31st anniversary of the princess's death ... At the end of this piece, one of the archbishop's composed prayer is presented from the Telegraph article. Other than that, there is the nasty question of Camillia, Duchess of Cornwall, being present at the memorial service to Diana. Charles insists his duchess wife be present to show "family unity." I think her presence is an out and out insult to the memory of Princess Diana, especially when Camilia is known to have thrown a monkey wrench into the marriage of Charles and Diana ...
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Camilla also says she doesn't want to be queen when Charles becomes king (if he ever should),
but whether she does or doesn't want to be queen misses the point. I, like the majority of English folkz, don't want the duchess to be queen -- period!! Then there was the Diana Concert a few weeks ago at where William and Harry acted more like court jesters than British princes!!
I was ruffled at the blase attitude they showed and the hideous questions put to them by some goofy DJ who should have had his head chopped off ... Then the fella Elton John, who I cannot stand, was all upset because he was forced to wait at the stadium so that Diana's sons could leave before him -- Elton John is just a plain old and worn out commoner despite his knighthood and his tune to Diana of "Candle Blowing in the Wind." Let's pray he doesn't arrive with Camilla at the Guards Chapel ... Both of them have one thing in common -- they're snotty-nosed commoners no matter their titles enscribed now before their lame names ...
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And, now for one of the archbishop's prayers in memory of ...
FATHER eternal, unfailing source of peace to all who seek you,
we entrust to your love and protection all whom this anniversary
of the tragic and untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales
reawakens the pain of grief and loss.
COMFORT all who mourn, that casting all their cares upon you,
they may be filled with your gifts of new life, of courage and of hope;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
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