A Night in the Public Shelter

John Dear & Joe Hines (eds.). Christ Is With The Poor. Stories and Sayings of Horace McKenna, S.J. Washington, D.C.: Father McKenna Center of St. Aloysius Church, 1989, 32 pages, For all the homeless, For all the hungry, For all the poor. This booklet is a project of the Father McKenna Center of St. Aloysius Church, in Washington, D.C. The McKenna Center is dedicated to serving the needs of the homeless and the poor of Washington, D.C. in the Gospel tradition of Horace McKenna, through employment, housing, rental, food, clothing and other forms of assistance, as well as through advocacy. To receive the Center newsletter, Slow Miracles, or for further information, contact: The Father McKenna Center, 19 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.. 20001 (202) 842-1112. The cover photo portrays Horace and Sr. Diane Roche with the children of Sursum Corda housing project (c. 1976). The photos of the homeless on pages 17 and 25, were taken by Jim Hubbard. For further information about his photography work with the homeless, contact Jim at: Image Concerns, 8104 Chester St., Takoma Park, MD, 20912. (301) 439-5283. We would like to thank all the many people who were interviewed and helped with the preparation for this booklet. Special thanks to Тош Williams, S.J., Dave Hinchen, S.J., Lisa Goode, George Anderson, S.J.. Ed Seibert S.J., Connie and Barbara McKenna, Nancy Fallgren, Helen Harvey, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, and all those many friends of Horace who offered helpful suggestions. This booklet was published with the help of Paul Fuqua of C.L.B. Publishers, Inc., Kensington, MD. Living the Gospel with a Cheerful Heart:

An Introduction to the Life of Horace McKenna, S.J.

By John Dear, S.J.

For many, he was a prophetic challenge. For others, he was simply a delightful older priest who kept everyone laughing. For the poor and homeless throughout Washington, D.C., he was the one person they could always count on. But for all who knew him, Horace McKenna, the Jesuit priest and friend of the poor, was a living saint, a true witness to the Gospel, a Christ-figure. He is not easily forgotten, first and foremost, by the poor whom he served. For them he offered the good news of God’s peace and dignity and justice. For the rest of us, struggling to live the Gospel, he showed us what it meant to be a Christian. Indeed, he showed us how to be human with one another.

I never met Horace McKenna, but I grew up in Washington, D.C. hearing about his good works. His death at the age of 83 in May, 1982, came a few months before I entered the Jesuits, and I was able to attend his funeral. I was deeply impressed by the many people who flocked to bid him farewell—rich and poor, black and white, young and old, women and men. “We are bound together in our love and affection for Father Horace,” the preacher observed that day. “We are one today because of him. In his own person, he had broken down all lines, barriers, and distinctions between us. He is our reconciler, mediator, and peacemaker. He is the door through whom we pass to friendship with one another.”

When Horace was born on January 2, 1899 in New York City, his parents had difficulty winning the approval of the parish priest for the new baby’s name. Horace’s father explained that everyone is named “John James” or “James John,” and he wanted to “break the routine.” “But there’s no St. Horace,” the priest said, referring to the custom that children be named after saints. “He’ll be the first!” retorted Mr. McKenna.

Horace entered the Society of Jesus on July 30, 1916. At the Jesuit novitiate, he prayed through St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and diligently studied Greek and Latin. Between 1921 to 1923, he taught in a Jesuit school in Manila, in the Philippines. There, he discovered the desperate needs of the poor and the oppressed. After theology studies, he was ordained a priest in 1929. His first assignment was a small parish in southern Maryland, among the poor blacks of the region. He stayed for twenty two years, from 1931 until 1953, pastoring St. Peter Claver’s Church, St. James’ Church, St. Ignatius’ Church and St Inigoes’.

Southern Maryland, a land of milk and honey and natural beauty, boiled over with racism and poverty. The entire region, like most of the country, was segregated — including the churches. Horace began the work of racial justice and reconciliation which Martin Luther King, Jr. later advocated in the civil rights movement With his friends, Richard McSorley, S.J. and Mike Kavanaugh, S.J., Horace continued to push for integration and better relations between whites and blacks into the early ’50s. In the midst of death threats, violent accusations and much anger, he helped to bring about reconciliation through his compassionate and loving presence.

From 1953 to 1958, he served at St. Aloysius Gonzaga parish, a Jesuit church a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. After a few years as assistant pastor at the Church of the Gesu in Philadelphia from 1958 until 1964, he returned to St Al’s and remained there for the rest of his life, serving the poor. “There were plenty of poor people around in those days,” Horace later recalled, “but of course there always are, if you keep your eyes open.”

“We have to learn to love other men and women in the depths of their spirits,” he said often, “even if they are in an African Village, a Brazilian mountaintop, or some Himalayan valley. We have to realize that as a human being, any person is a brother or sister to Jesus, and so is intimately related to us, and we must have sympathy for him or her and must make an effort to help that person, whether it is by prayer, or by teaching or by social action of some sort.” Such was Horace’s message, which he offered to any who would listen.

Through his years serving and defending the poor of Washington, DC., Horace helped found such works as S.O.M.E. (So Others Might Eat, a soup kitchen, clinic, housing and job program), “Sursum Corda” (a housing project located near the U.S. Capitol), and Martha’s Table, (a soup kitchen and center for homeless women). Horace became a common figure in the city, the leading advocate of the poor, and the friend that the poor could always trust. Stories are told about the many homeless people who often turned to Horace on cold winter nights with no place else to go, and were allowed to sleep in one of the Jesuits’ cars. One homeless man, applying for some government program, when asked for his legal residence, replied, “The back seat of Father McKenna’s car.”

Horace was reknown in the parish for his one-minute homilies, dramatically checked at times from the pulpit with a raised stopwatched. He was eminently quotable, always offering little gems of insight into the Gospel. His friends included a host of homeless and poor folks across the city, as well as such stellar lights as Imagene Stewart, the dynamic and inspiring preacher and pastor of the Church of What’s Happening Now, and Dorothy Day.

But Horace’s life was not without difficulty. His religious superiors refused to allow him to be part of the famous March on Washington in 1963 where Dr. King proclaimed his dream for a just society. Because he refused to support Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical dealing with birth control, his priestly faculties were temporarily suspended. He refused to criticize church leaders, but held his ground citing the day-to-day encounters with the poor, and the realities of their struggle.

During the Vietnam war, he marched in anti-war demonstrations in Washington. “When war is so general as it would be now, and putting up a defense means killing on a wholesale scale, that is simply organized murder, and it is useless,” he said later, regarding the prospect of nuclear war. “In purely personal matters, one should act upon the Sermon on the Mount and turn the other cheek, which means relying on the goodness of God to soften the assailant or support the sufferer — but in matters of modem war, that’s not enough. The Bishops," Horace said a few years before the pastoral letter on peace, “have to come out and speak against wholesale obliteration, which is atomic war.”

In the summer of 1968, Horace spent a lot of time on the Mall with the thousands of rural people who had travelled across the country to come to Washington, D.C. and to take a stand for justice. The Poor Peoples’ Campaign had been Dr. King’s dream, but he did not live to see it. Horace was 69 years old, but he slept outdoors in that hot summer heat with the people, and talked with them at length during the day. In that way, he became a member of “Resurrection City.”

Throughout his last years of life, Horace retained an openness and a tolerance that continued to make him younger in spirit with each passing day. In his late 70s, Horace started to study liberation theology, supported the ordination of women and attended a workshop on ministry to the gay community. As one priest remarked: “It was amazing to see one so open as he was at his age. He was an old priest, but he was so with it at the same time.”

Horace had “a truly Christian attitude of mind in his dealings with everybody — even people with whom he disagreed. He was always very kind and patient. He disagreed with people, but he was just a very charitable man.” “I have never heard him voice ill-will against any person,” said another friend. “He was always delightful, so cheerful and chipper. Many people put a guilt trip on you and are party poopers in dealing with the problems of life and religion, but Horace always used sugar instead of vinegar in his approach. He was always affirming. He cared about people. He was all the good things that count.”

Horace said at one point toward the end of his life: “When God lets me into heaven, I think I’ll ask to go off in a corner somewhere for half an hour and sit down and cry because the strain is off, the work is done, and I haven’t been unfaithful or disloyal. All these needs that I have known are in the hands of Providence and I won’t have to worry any longer who’s at the door, whose breadbox is empty, whose baby is sick, whose house is shaken and discouraged, and whose children can’t read.”

Horace left an example to all of us, an example of how to be human with each other, how to serve those in need, how to share our lives with those in need. He was faithful to the Gospel mission of loving others, reconciling people, making peace and following Jesus. He saw Christ present in the homeless and the poor. Indeed, he saw every human being as his very own sister and brother, a child of God. His life is a testament of service and commitment, of love and peacemaking, of speaking the truth and working for justice. He served the poor, said his prayers, laughed with his friends, and died with a deep belief in God.

At the McKenna Center, the drop-in center and shelter for the homeless at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C., we encounter the passion of Jesus played out before our eyes every day. Christ comes to us: homeless, broke, without friends, evicted, unemployed, wanted, an illegal refugee, a torture victim from Guatemala or South Africa, a mother with nine children and no food, an AIDS victim, an alcoholic or drug addict, a victim of violence. In these poor, Christ comes to us as he did to Horace. Today, however, the struggle to survive — the reality of life — is even more difficult for the poor. Nearly 15,000 people are currently homeless in Washington, D.C.

Today there are some three million people homeless in the United States. Congress predicts that by the year 2000, there will be nearly 19 million homeless people. The primary cause for this dramatic rise in homelessness is the drastic cutting of the housing budget by the Reagan and Bush Administrations. 77 percent of the money set aside for housing since 1981 has been cut: $25 billion a year. Most of the budget has instead gone for more bombs and nuclear weapons. Horace would be appalled at this and would surely be working hard to reverse the situation. He would want us to take up where he left off: to stand in solidarity with the poor and homeless; to demand money for adequate housing and food for the poor; and to work for the creation of a nonviolent, just society.

This little booklet is a collection of remembrances and stories by those who knew Horace. Interspersed with sayings by Horace that have been collected over the years as well as photos from the archives of Georgetown University, it is offered, to those who knew him and to those who just getting to know him, as an invitation into the spirit of Horace McKenna, friend of the poor and friend of God. Horace speaks to us through these pages, inviting us all to serve and love Christ in one another, especially in the poor, and to dedicate ourselves as Horace did to bringing life and justice and dignity to those in need everywhere.

May we continue to be enriched by the life and witness of Horace McKenna and may he help us to see Christ in the poor and in each other.

John Dear, S.J.

Washington, D.C.

“If the church does not care for the poor, they will be neglected. That is the test of our faithfulness to Christ: how we relate to the poor.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

“I really believe that every person is a revelation of God — the joy of God, the love of God. I feel that the human person on the street is the appearance of Jesus Christ consumed with human needs. Christ is in the wretched person, as well as the young person, the young woman or the young child. Their smile is so fresh, like a bud or an open flower that speaks of the wealth of the plant beneath the surface. And that wealth is God.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

I had a houseful of kids, twelve of them. I told Father McKenna their names the first time he ever came into our house. From that day till the day he died, he knew all my kids’ names. If I walked down the street he’d say “Mrs. Black, how’s Veronica?” And then he’d start whooping off the rest of their names. He always asked especially for my son Andre, who was an altar boy at St. Al’s.

When he’d come around the neighborhood, the kids acted like he was the Good Humor Man; all of them just ran behind him, up and down the street. My children would spot him with a swarm of kids already following him. They’d be tugging on his coat and shouting his name. And my own would rush up to me and say, “Mama, I have to go! Father McKinley’s here!”

Before long, my kids started asking him to visit our home; they wanted me to see him. Sometimes, I’d meet him at the door, and after I’d invited him to come on in, he’d start talking about the little things that he did. And I’d say, “Father, bless my house.” He must have blessed it about fifty times, because every time he’d come to visit, I’d say, “Father, bless my house.” And he’d always do it.

He loved the kids. He was always encouraging them to stay in school, to finish their education. That’s what he used to ask me to say to them: “Make them stay in school, Mrs. Black. Make them stay in school.”

Around Christmas and Thanksgiving he always sent us a basket of food; I wouldn’t have to ask for it because he knew I had a houseful of kids. He would always have those Gonzaga kids knock on my door and give us some food. In fact, he didn’t ask anybody; he just knocked and delivered until the food ran out. That’s the kind of man he was. He didn’t ask whether you needed it or not; he just gave it to you. He’d give you the shirt off his back.

— Ms. Augustine Black

“The poor are here, I believe, to teach us our lesson that we must live modestly. Their pains are God’s summons or invitation to us to share. Ill-gotten wealth and ill-used surplus really belong to those in need. In the poor, God speaks shrilly to our minds, but lovingly to our hearts.”

—Horace McKenna, S.J

Horace was ready for anything. I never met a person who was so completely and totally available. Anyone could come into his room at any time and ask to go to confession or just visit with him or seek spiritual direction or ask for help. People just showed up—and he would never say, ‘Could you wait a half hour?’—or something like that. He’d always be willing to put aside whatever he was doing and talk to you. He didn’t seem to have an agenda for the day. Instead, he went into each day open—prepared for anything, willing to do anything!

The homeless were always coming to the door downstairs, asking for him. He not only met all those people and faced many interruptions, but he rarely showed any impatience towards them. Even if the doorbell rang at three o’clock in the morning, he’d go downstairs to answer it cheerfully.

The people who came to see him at the front door were always so down and out. I remember one couple in particular—the man was in a wheelchair and they came to the door on a cold, windy Sunday afternoon in the middle of the winter. They smelled to high heaven. Yet Horace took them by the hand, welcomed them in and cared for them. Many people romanticize homeless people. But when you experience their pain and poverty in the concrete, you get a different picture. Yet Horace delighted in the poor: he just didn’t take care of them out of some sense of obligation or in some resigned sort of way. He genuinely cared for them. He took joy in being with them, in helping them, in spending time with them.

—Joe Newell, S.J.

“There is a vital strength in the poor. Its basis is their realization that they are children of God and that God is their mother, their father. They have an inheritance like everybody else. That’s the basis of their dignity. You can’t beat that out of them, or scare it out of them or shame it out of them.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Horace was always giving away quarters from morning till night. People would often say, “Horace, these people don’t really need those quarters.” And he would say, “But someday, somebody might” And whenever anyone would ever call for him, he would always go. He knew that sometimes people might be “crying wolf,” but that one time, they might not be. He always tried to help others, and so he always gave something.

But I did not listen. Then, one day, down at S.O.M.E. (the soup kitchen, “So Others Might Eat”), a man ran inside our dining room. And he started to shout, “Help me! Help me! There are people out there from the state department, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. They’re going to take me to jail! Would come out and say something to them for me?” But I thought he was kidding, so I didn’t go.

It turned out that what the man said was true. I learned later, from the local policeman, that all three groups were there, and that they had taken the man away. I don’t know what for, but I know that Father McKenna would have gone to his aid immediately when he was called upon. A short time after that happened, I thought of Father McKenna and what he said: “If somebody calls on you—however trivial or unlikely their need may seem to you—give one hundred percent of your self to that person.”

—Dr. Veronica Maz

“Our Lord did his miracles instantaneously at a word, but his church, his brothers, his sisters, his fathers and mothers have to do their miracles slowly.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

It is said that when the love of God and the love of neighbor coalesce and become one love, there is the mystic, it seems that this was true of Horace. I remember his cryptic definiton of God: “God is humanity in need.” When asked to explain this, he replied: “God is the only one to meet the fullness of need in the human search for God.”

Leafing through the biography of Horace McKenna, one searches for moments of conversion toward this oneness of love which he attained. One of his first assignments in the Society of Jesus was to the Ateneo de Manila, a high school in the Philippines, in the early 1920s. The students there were affluent. One day, Horace saw a Jesuit Brother giving away food and goodies left over on the patio tables when the bell summoned the students back to class. The Brother gave the food out to children who pressed against the school gate, pleading “Brother, give us the bread, give us some cake, give us the leftover sandwiches.” Was this his first insight into “humanity in need”? I think so. Horace was from a moderately wealthy family, protected and a bit isolated from the New York poor. His time in the Philippines was a time of conversion towards the poor.

Later, Horace would bestow titular terms of “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” or “Miss,” on to people he knew by first name to give them their true dignity. There was a circular flow from his prayer: his stance before God flowed into his stance in the presence of the “lease of these,” someone sitting on the curb-stone, whom he called, “Mr.,” or someone in the “third floor rear,” the cheapest rental apartment, whom he showed full reverence and great human sensitivity to. It seems Horace grew and grew to see more and more clearly the oneness between the love of God and the love of neighbor.

—Bill McMichelman, S.J.

“You can’t talk to a person about his or her soul if that person has no food.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

His presence at meetings and his one-liners are legendary. The one I really remember was at one of the province meetings over in Baltimore. We were talking about poverty and, typically, Horace fell asleep during the conversation. Later, he woke up and suddenly began to speak. And I remember what he said: “You can fight about giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish, but what do you do when 28% of the fishermen are unemployed?” And then he sat down.

The debate had been about handouts and direct ministry to the poor vs. education. And Horace was saying that the systemic problem is such that the people who have wealth and power are making it impossible for people even to earn their own living because of the way the social system is being manipulated by those who have power.

He was always trying to get us to see life from the perspective of the poor. “Don’t forget the poor! Don’t forget the poor!” he would say.

—Tom Skrabak Edwards

“If we see our sisters and brothers as God’s children, we will want to help them and bring them their share of God’s goodness.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

“Father McKenna was one of those people I could always feel safe with. I could talk to him anytime and feel like he wasn’t going to judge me. I could tell him anything, and be at ease. Sometimes, I would feel as though he himself had done the same thing that I had done; he didn’t make me feel sad or guilty. He’d help me to see things from a perspective that I would have never found on my own. And often, he made me feel as though I was counselling him, as if I was helping him to help someone else. He was very open and relaxed when I was talking with him. He made me feel good about myself. You know how you can carry a burden for years and years? Well, he was someone who was there, someone who was willing to release that burden. And he was always there. No matter what. When I needed to reach him, he never said it was too early or too late. He never said he didn’t have time; he always made that time. He was a beautiful person. He had a glow about him, like the sun when it lights up in the morning. No matter where he was, no matter how dark or gloomy it was, he brought the light.”

—Ms. Janet Vinson

“The Church without social work is like Christ without miracles.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Horace had a way of reframing the every day events of life in our Sursum Corda neighborhood in a way that made room for the intervention of the divine. He expected miracles of growth and new life and pointed out the evidence of these events to us with reverence and humor. Like an attentive gardener, he was aware of every community meeting and fund raising effort and always showed up to offer his encouragement.

So I wasn’t surprised one year when he showed up at the Joseph Brothers’ Carnival over in the Walker Jones school yard. We were trying to raise money to meet some kind of matching grant, I think, and our previous efforts had not been terribly successful. The neighborhood, even then, was a risky place to be running a carnival after-dark and there had been rumors that a group of older boys was going to try and rob the carnival. As a result, I had been chosen as the person to collect all the money in a little wooden booth, while members of my own teen group, which was at the time called the “Boy’s Power Club,” stood guard on either side in their matching “Dr. J” tee-shirts. This sight evidently reminded Horace of some kind of urban tryptic and he delighted in referring to me, for months afterward, as “The Madonna of the Ticket Booth.”

—Sr. Diane Roche

“I do not see God in God’s present creatures. I see God in God’s absence. I see the need for God, the want for God, the thirst for God, in the hungry, the shabby, the cold, the outcast. These people are not meant to live in that want. They are meant to be cared for, provided for, and loved. Only God can awaken this care and sustain this love and reward this attention. And the human misery present is a cry and a plea to God, and a scream to all people to fulfill their human role and distribute to the needy their inheritance and so witness to the love of Christ for the beggar Lazarus and for Jairus’ daughter and the penniless widow.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

One Christmas Eve, as I walking down the corridor of the Jesuit соmmunity, I saw Horace walking towards the door in his pajamas. At this point in his life he was almost completely blind. He wore his black overcoat over his pajamas, and he had his hat on.

“Horace”, I said, “Why are you dressed up like that at 11 o’clock night?”

“I just got a phone call,” he answered. “There is a couple outside with a baby, and it’s freezing.” He said, “They’re coming to the back door.”

“I’ll go down with you and meet them,” I said.

We went down to the back door and waited until we heard a knock. There on the steps was a man and his wife with their child. It was five degrees above zero on Christmas Eve and they had no place to stay. One of the parishioners had seen them walking the streets in front of the church, and she thought it was too cold for the baby to be out. It certainly was! So she had called Horace.

I started to talk to them at the door, and Horace said, “Bring them in, bring them in! Turn on the hot chocolate machine and fill them up with hot chocolate right away!” We took them into the dining room and Horace asked a few questions. The fellow was Puerto Rican; the girl was from the mountains of North Carolina. They were driving from New York, but their car broke down in Newark, New Jersey. He had no money to fix it, so he sold it. And with the money he got for the car, he bought a train ticket which got them as far as Washington. They got off the train here in D.C. Washington’s Union Station is seven blocks St. Aloysius’ Church. They were penniless and stranded and had no place to go.

It was now approaching midnight, but Horace got on the phone and started badgering city officals at various agencies. He had somebody who needed shelter, he said. He’d say, “This is McKenna talking” and the agencies recognized whom he was. Eventually, they arranged a room for this man and his wife and their baby on that Christmas night. Horace took them across town to a hotel that would put them up at the city’s expense.

That was Christmas—1980; a typical Christmas in today’s world Horace was able to turn around the orginal story. He changed things. Horace made room at the inn.

—Thomas Buckley, S.J.

“In the old days, we would go out in pairs and take care of the Widow Jones who had no bread or the Widow Smith whose rent was due. But now, the poor are a swarm all around us. We can’t go out to them. How could you go to sixty homes? How could you go everywhere at once? We have to be ready when they come to us.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Horace could be so funny. During the first year that I worked with him, he had an attack—I forget what time of year it was, but I do remember that it happened on a Sunday. He had experienced a seizure, passed out—or something like that—in the sacristy. As the expression of the black people goes, he “fell out”. Everyone was going around the parish saying, “Father McKenna fell out; Father McKenna fell out.” You’d hear everyone saying it around the parish. And a few days later, after he had recovered, I heard Horace talking one morning on the phone. I heard him saying to somebody, “Ray tells me I fell out; but I don’t know what I fell out of.”

—Ray Gawronski, S.J.

“The greatest undeveloped resource of our nation and of our world is the poor.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Horace once told me this story. “I had gone to the national convention of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Philadelphia,” he began. “I took the bus up to Philadelphia and I went to the convention; it was about three or four days long. I was one of the few who stayed for the whole thing. We talked about the poor and how we could serve them and it was a good meeting. At the end of the meeting, there was to be a big Mass. They held the Mass at the Cathedral—the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul, at 18th Street and the Parkway.”

“The meeting had been at a hotel, downtown,” he continued. “And they had limousine service for the monsignors and for the bishops and the priests to get from the hotel to the cathedral. The poor people had to walk to the Mass.”

“So I figured I should walk with the people. My leg was hurting, but I got myself together and I walked up to the Cathedral for the Mass. I was a little early; in fact, I was there before anybody else. I went back into the sacristy. Since I used to be stationed near there—I used to concelebrate regularly at the Cathedral—I knew the place well. I went into the sacristy, and I put my alb on and my stole and I was waiting there for everyone else to come. And before long, who came up to me but the master of ceremonies for the Cardinal, and he said, ‘Excuse me, Father, but are you a monsignor?’ ‘No, I’m just a simple parish priest, a simple parish priest. I used to be at the Gesu parish here in Philadelphia, but now I’m at St. Aloysius in Washington.’ And he said to me, ‘Well, I’m very, very sorry, Father, but if you’re not a monsignor or bishop, you cannot concelebrate at this Mass. The Cardinal had decreed that only monsignors and above can concelebrate at this Mass of St. Vincent de Paul.’ ”

“And so I said to myself—I felt very hurt—but I said to myself, ‘That’s fine. They make the rules and I abide by them.’ So I got out of my robes and left. I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. I just walked up to the Gesu parish.” (The Gesu parish is about two miles north of there, and Horace in those days was beginning to hobble a bit and his legs were starting to give out.)

“So I walked up 18th Street,” he continued, “and I walked past the Hispanic neighborhood and then I walked through another poor neighborhood where the elderly white, Italians and blacks were, and north to Girard Avenue. As I was walking up 18th Street just outside of St. Joe’s Prep, I looked over on the steps of the Gesu church—a place dear to my heart because I used to be assistant pastor there—and there was a poor, old man there sitting on the steps, and he was drinking wine. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon. And I walked up to him and said, ‘Excuse me, but would you like to break bread together with me?’

And he smiled at me and he said yes, he would like to. So we got the key from the sacristy and we went into the Gesu, and I got vested and I broke bread with the poor man there.”

And he said, “That was a very meaningful Eucharist—breaking bread and giving thanks among the poor. That’s what St. Vincent de Paul was all about, and that is what we should be about.”

—Joe Hacala, S.J.

“The ‘love gifts’ that you distribute to the poor and needy are a proof to them that they are children of God and that you, who are their benefactors, are disciples of Jesus. ”—Horace McKenna, S.J.

One day I was helping Horace with his budget for the St. Vincent de Paul Society. There was one line item for $19,000 in the budget that I didn’t understand. This particular year, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, under Horace’s direction, was going to give away $45,000. And this one item was listed as “DP.” Now he had funds that would be donated from friends, funds that would come from this or that school or business group, and funds that came from church organizations. But he had this one item, “DP” that didn’t seem to be related to anybody. So I asked him: “Horace, what does ‘DP’ stand for?” And Horace replied, “DP stands for Divine Providence. This is the money which I do not know where it’s going to come from, but which will make this work possible.”

—Joe McCloskey, S.J.

“There should be shelters and soup kitchens and St. Vincent de Paul conferences in every parish to take care of the poor, but most parishes don’t seem to know where the poor are.”

—Horace McKenna, S.J.

Even though Horace was blind in his later years, he could always sense a person in need.

One fall day in 1981, I was standing in the back of St. Aloysius’ Church, greeting the people. I had just celebrated the Saturday afternoon 4:30 Mass. Horace had joined me at the altar.

Whenever there was a liturgy or ceremony at St. Al’s, a number of street people would come inside to escape the cold. There was one man who used to come into the lower church. James was his name. The poor fellow was a chronic alcoholic. Usually, he would be bombed and start shouting and asking for money.

But this particular day, I didn’t want to be bothered with him. I had somewhere else to go, and it had already been a rough day. As he came inside, I was just getting ready to lock the door. It was always difficult to get him out once he got in. So I started trying to get him out of the church, and I wasn’t being very polite about it.

Horace had been in the front of the church and heard the commotion. He had a very acute ear and easily recognized people by voice. He walked down the aisle towards the place where I was arguing with James. It was chilly outside, and it had not occurred to me that the poor fellow had no coat on and probably hadn’t eaten. As I was standing there fussing with him, Horace walked up and said, “James, are you cold, James?” And he said, “Yeah, Father, I don’t have a jacket.” And Horace took off his own jacket and said, “Here, take my jacket” And then Horace said to him, “Have you had anything to eat James?” And he looked sadly at Horace and responded, “No, Father, I haven’t had anything to eat.” So Horace reached into his pocket pulled out a wrinkled dollar bill and said, “Here, I’ll give you a dollar.” Then Horace and James walked together toward the door.

I had been so upset and angry with having to deal with someone who was interfering with my own life that it had never occrred to me that James was someone standing before me in need. My homily that day had even been about being sensitive to the needs of other people! Yet I myself had become callous. All I saw that day was a drunk, not a person in need. The questions that Horace asked revealed his concern about the man’s immediate physical needs, far more than I had been able even to realize. I think Horace is a saint because of the way in which he identified with a person in need and freely gave of himself to that person. How many times throughout his life had Horace taken his coat off and given it to someone else, without even thinking about it?

—George Quickley, S.J.

“It’s so bad to see so many people in need of a meal. Wouldn’t you think they’d have homes and facilities and a loving family and plenty of food in the closet? And yet they haven’t. They have to come out and get a hot meal that’s offered to them by some sensitive church.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

In the mid-sixties, our neighborhood in Washington, D.C. near St ATs began to undergo “urban renewal”. The northeast side of the community—from К St. over to H St.—had been “renewed": every home was torn down and none of them were replaced. Most families wanted to jump up and leave, but they didn’t have anywhere to go. So most of them stayed in this neighborhood, moving from one street to another whenever they had to. Everyone was worried about where they were going to live once the government grabbed their house.

Father McKenna started to meet very quietly with residents of the neighborhood. His idea was to bring everybody together and rebuild. We began refusing to move and even set up a Tent City where the old Sibley Hospital used to be. And we slept out there all night. I can still remember how hard the ground was, a mixture of crushed bricks and dirt. And Father McKenna came and blessed us, and then joined us as we hooted and hollered for some attention from the newspapers and some action from Walter Washington, who was mayor of D.C. at the time. Soon we started running to Congress and petitioning for assistance. Father McKenna became very instrumental in our cause. He used his connections to help bring about congressional hearings on urban renewal. He also had friends at H.U.D. and other agencies who, even though they just didn’t understand what we needed, they listened to us because we had him on our side. He got some good ears for us. Eventually, things began happening, and Sursum Corda (which means, “Lift Up Your Heart”) was born.

Father McKenna had a way about him: everybody was important and everybody’s problem mattered. He just didn’t say, “Well, you go there” or “You do this.” Father McKenna went with you or for you. And it was done—whatever the need was, it was done. And it was done before he went home that night: you had something to eat or you went to that doctor. Whatever the need was, it was done. He would never be too busy to stop for you. I never understood where Father McKenna got all his time from: you could find him anytime, everywhere, always helping people, giving himself to others.

—Ms. Alverta Munlyn

“My greatest cause for thanksgiving is that I am involved with God’s poor.... These poor people by whom we are surrounded here in the inner city haunt and attract me. I see

their poor clothes which are hard on their personal dignity. Their food is limited, reducing their strength and powers. And their housing is a scandal cramping their social joy and growth.

These people I love—I want the love of every woman, I want the support, the wisdom, the providence of every man, and I want the confidence of every child. But this is all secondary. The main hunger that I share and the want that aches me is that God is eager, yearning for them.

Why not for the comfortable suburbanites? For them too I feel: their tensions, frustrations, disappointments, shortages of love. But God is eager to get into all these people. As God gives blood to their bodies, God wants their faith and love. God is though, in a way, in the greater need with the poor. So I feel and hope that it is God’s wants that I am satisfying, God’s yearning, God’s ache, God’s desire.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Towards the end of his life, Father McKenna got so sick and blind that he wasn’t allowed to go outside of the church by himself. Somebody had to be with him. But he would slip out, anyway. I don’t know where else he went, but he would often come right here, to Sursum Corda, to my house. And I’d say, “Father McKenna, you’re by yourself!” And he’d reply, “Yes... Oh, I can’t be waiting, can’t be waiting for people to take care of me.” He’d talk so soft and nice. “I can’t be waiting for people; I had to come and see how you are and give you communion.” And eventually somebody would come looking for him. Later, they’d say they’d have to get a harness for him ‘cause nobody could keep up with him.

—Ms. Willette Street

“I think we need to have marches—hunger marches, marches for the homeless, marches for peace. We need to make the government realize it should not spend our food money on armaments for war.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

Horace combined the best of ‘hands on’ concern for people with an appreciation of the deeper issues going on—a political sensitivity. He integrated his concern for the personal and the structural. He brought the two together. And I saw that in a variety of different ways, but most dramatically when he received the “Washingtonian of the Year” award in 1977. A few weeks before the awards banquet took place, he called me on the phone and said, “Peter, would you come to dinner at the Hyatt Regency with me? I have a table there reserved because I’m being given this award.” They give ten awards or so, and each person who is receiving an award invites some guests who sit at the same table. I was honored to be invited by Horace, and so I went.

It was a really fancy, high class, black tie event. There were one or two other Jesuits at the table, along with Robbie Robinson from the Catholic Interracial Counsel, and a couple of other people including some street people.

While we sat at this table in the Hyatt Regency, Horace was seated at the front table. The organizers had invited him to give the invocation. When the festivities were about to begin, he got up, went to the podium, and with his stuttering voice began to pray: “O Lord bless us and make us strong and let us remember that the poor are the finger of God.. .” He used several images like that. And it was quite startling because the other Washingtonians of the Year were from such diverse social groups and occupations. I think there was a Redskins player, a politician, and an artist from the Kennedy Center, to mention only a few. And here was this man bringing the poor into his opening prayer at this very posh banquet.

Then, after the meal, when each person was called up to receive their award, they were given two or three minutes to make some remarks. The eight of us who were Horace’s guests were located in the middle of the dining room. When Horace was called forward, we gave him a standing ovation. None of the other people who had been called forward had been given one.

Then he stood before everyone and began to speak: “Thank you very much for this award. I just want to say one thing: The poor are the key to peace, the unfinished business of God’s providence, which God has left us to complete.” He gave them a very strong message, whereas the other reward recipients had talked about “all this award meant to me,” etc. Horace took the occasion to address the issue of the poor in the structural sense: how business and how the politicians and how other kinds of things should relate to them. And then he ended up with a plea for peace, urging the audience to imagine a day when “the Pentagon would become a United Nations Visitor’s Center!” Well, the audience was just stunned, but again the group of us stood up and applauded wildly and eventually many others did, too.

In the establishment of Washington, D.C., Horace said things that were not very acceptable to say. And that was his gift, the unique combination which he brought to the Washington scene: care for the poor on the streets and a willingness to challenge the political, structural issues of poverty.

—Peter Henriot, S.J.

“The poor can’t lift themselves up by their own bootstraps because they have no boots.”

—Horace McKenna, S.J.

One evening—just before he died in 1982—at about eleven o’clock, I came downstairs from my room in the Jesuit community at Gonzaga to xerox some handouts for the following school day and fix myself some hot chocolate. It was extremely cold outside. I could hear the wind howling.

There, amidst the shadows of the long hall, I could see Horace a short distance away from where I was standing. The door clicked shut behind me, and he looked up and greeted me with a smile. “Lucien, is that you?,” he asked. “No,” I replied, “It’s Joe, Horace.” “Oh. This friend of mine here has been sleeping in our doorway and the frost has got her feet.”

Someone else was with him, a woman with lots of grey stringy hair, perhaps in her late fifties. She was leaning into his side, her left arm around his neck, the other hanging onto the top of his shoulder. With both his hands, Horace was holding on to her arm and wrist I could sense the tenacity of his grip. I realized that he was holding her up and trying to help her to walk forward, probably toward the doorway which I had just come through. I could see his black shoes, scuffed and shineless. Her feet were bare and swollen. There were red spots and dried blood on them.

He knew her name and was gently coaxing her to take little steps forward. She was twice his size and I imagined that I myself would have trouble holding her up.

As I stood there watching, I became completely amazed that he was succeeding so magnificiently in his effort to keep her standing as well as moving forward. She sighed and groaned, and I realized that every movement of those swollen, bloody feet was agonizing for her. As Horace struggled to move, he was breathing heavily. He was 83 years old and blind.

Because he was so old and feeble, I had usually thought of him as someone in need of help rather than a care giver. Yet there he was: with all his strength, he was helping her, supporting her, getting her to move forward. With all his heart, he was encouraging her. With all his mind, he was trying to guide her toward the doorway. The totality of his love and concern for this woman of poverty—not any woman, but this woman whose name he knew—amazed me. That was typical of Horace, right to the end of his life.

—Joe Hines

“In my dream of the Last Day, Our Lord will come back and reward us for having, by his grace, straightened the world out, and having the poor competent, and the rich thoughtful and the well-protected kindly and generous and involved, and the educated enthralled with the Kingdom of God, and the spiritual able to perceive God in such a way as to make God visible to us.”

—Horace McKenna, S.J.

I met Father McKenna about three or four years before he died. I’d been attending another church but had decided to join St. AI’s. Sometimes I’d come to Mass there and sit in the back, near his confessional box. Whenever he passed by, he’d always take a minute to say hello and make me feel welcome. He knew I wasn’t a member, but I think he was trying to get me baited in! It was because of Father McKenna that I eventually joined: he encouraged me to become a member of the parish by his constant interest. He made me feel like I belonged.

He always seemed to know when you had some kind of problem. He’d say, “Alice, it looks like you’re kind of worried up about something today.” And he’d get me to start talking with him.

And whenever I called Father McKenna, I knew he would be there and that I could count on him. It didn’t matter what the situation was. If someone told him that their ‘cousin’s uncle’ was sick, he’d go over to see him even if he didn’t know their ‘cousin’s uncle’. Once, my sister was very badly bad off sick; and he went to the hospital to see her and prayed with her. When she came home, he went back to see her again and prayed some more with her. And my sister didn’t even attend St. AI’s.

He was a person who didn’t have color on his mind; he wouldn’t distinguish between colors with his eyes. For Horace, everybody was a human being. He didn’t look at you and say, “Well, you’re black, so you’re over there.” He would just accept people as they were. He was a very humble person. He was such an open, honest fair person. Around the neighborhood and especially in the projects, Father McKenna would walk through places you’d be scared to go into, even if you lived there. He certainly wasn’t a man of fear, he was a man who was at peace, and he shared that peace with others.

—Ms. Alice Jones

“In Jesus, we are so near to God that the Cherubim and Seraphim, the angels nearest to God, seem like outfielders.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

How joyful Horace usually was! He was such a joyful person. Yet, I remember a day, about a month before he died, when he was not very joyful. I came in early to Gonzaga one morning, and Horace was at breakfast, sitting with another Jesuit. I sat down with them, and before long I realized that Horace was feeling pretty low. And this was so rare—very rare. I could tell in part because he wasn’t eating his breakfast with any great relish like he usually did; he was being really pokey. So I said, “Horace, you seem really down today.” And he didn’t try to hide it, he said, “Yea, I’m not feeling so great today.... but I really don’t know why because the power of the resurrection is as much in force today as it is any other day.”

Only later did I reflect on this passing comment of his, perhaps a clue to what really inspired him on most days. Perhaps he was so joyful all the time because he so much identified himself with Christ and felt resurrected all the time. His energy was constant. And it just showed twelve, actually, twenty four hours a day. So this one statement he made about living in the Spirit of resurrection has stayed with me; something he said on one of his infrequent down days.

—Joe Hennessey

“We should always strive not to hurt or kill anyone. Our motto should be the spiritual song, ‘We ain’t gonna study war no more’.” —Horace McKenna, S.J.

A few days before he went home to God, I visited Father McKenna at Georgetown Hospital. His eyesight was limited to a few feet, so before he recognzied me, I began with “May the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit descend upon you.” As I continued, he blessed himself, held out his hand in welcome and asked, “How are you? How is your work for peace going?”

It was typical of Horace that he talked about me, about my work. Over many long years, he had developed a knack of turning a conversation around onto the concerns of the one with whom he was speaking. His interest was so genuine. You scarcely noticed how he kept to that topic. Here he was still doing it at age 83 with only a few days to live. Though we talked only a few moments, he said, as though it was a summary of his life, “You know, one of the most important things I have learned is that Jesus Christ is present in every human being.”

This was a theme on which he often talked. “When I look in the mirror, what do I see?” he once said, “I see a child of God. When I come down to breakfast in the morning, whom do I see? I should see a child of God, because God is present there.” He really did see Christ in others. “Christ is present in each hungry man and woman. Christ is present in each homeless man and woman. Christ is with the poor,” he said.

This, I think, was the secret of his strength and his personal identification with the hungry and the homeless and the poor. In every poor person, Horace McKenna saw Christ—hungry, homeless, poor. That was his life message.

—Richard McSorley, S.J.

A Night in the Public Shelter

By Horace McKenna, S.J.

Last January was one of the coldest months in recent history. Some of our fellow citizens froze to death because they didn’t have warm places to stay. The welfare department responded by fitting the old Blair School at 6th and 1 Streets N.E. as a shelter with beds, showers and meals. The Community for Creative Nonviolence opened two temporary basement shelters, one at Luther Place Church and one at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church. We began asking for them at the Gospel Mission. I felt that it was fair to go and see for myself what the provisions for the homeless were.

In early October, around 7 p.m., I walked over six or seven blocks through the dark streets and a railroad tunnel to the area of Blair School. I wore a sport shirt and reddish jacket. My eyesight is poor, but I finally found the area. As I started down the side street, a half dozen boys began following me out of nowhere. They said among themselves: “White head, white face, where are you going?”

So, I turned around and asked the boys: “Where is Blair School?”

As they moved quickly past me, one of them waved in the direction of the school.

At the school entrance, I met James Kelly, whom I knew. He was surprised to see me, but he understood that I wanted to stay for the night. I joined a double line of about 15 men who were preparing to enter. Three or four of them knew me, and said: “Hello, Father.”

Three tables were waiting for us. Apparently one was for general registration, one for Social Security numbers and one for bed assignment.

One man said to me: “Are you here for inspection?"

“No, 1 want to sleep,” I replied.

It was only at the third table that I got any trouble. “You shouldn’t be here,” one man said.

“Why not?”

“You have a bed, haven’t you?"

I said, “Yes.”

“You are keeping somebody out of a bed here."

I said, “Well then. I’ll sleep in a chair."

“What are you trying to do?”

I said, “I want to see how my brothers in Christ are treated.”

I felt I might as well fling the whole story at him since he wanted to know.

I went downstairs to prepare for bed. We took our clothes off. Each of us got a plastic bag and a tag with our name on it. The inside of the bag was sprayed, and the clothes were tied up so tight it was hard to untie them the next morning. Then we walked over to the shower room. One of the shower sprays was open, and I ran under it. Fortunately, the water was warm—as it had not been a couple of nights before, they told me. After I came out of the shower, somebody threw me a good towel, and then we were given short knickerbockers and a kind of jacket, both clean and fresh from the dryer.

As we dressed for supper, we went in and sat down at the table—about 50 men at the time. The supper was very substantial, a plate full of hot sauerkraut with hot dogs mixed in, two good sized sandwiches, one of meat and one of cheese and a cup of juice or coffee.

On the way up to bed, we were given a pair of light felt slippers that felt good on the cold stone and on the iron steps. They motioned me to a bed behind the night desk. I am afraid it was a special bed rather than a dormitory bed. Sometimes they call it a bridal suite for snorers. (I heard one man snoring during the night he almost rocked the place.) Someone threw a big blanket to me, and I slept about two-thirds of the night.

Before 5 a.m., men were moving around getting ready for work. At 5 o’clock, we were roused up. I folded my blanket and went downstairs and got my clothes.

After the men dressed, they moved out into the street to the two vans that would take them to the employment centers. About a dozen men were standing there for an eighty-passenger bus.

“Put Father in the first bus,” they said.

I said, “No. I want to take my turn”

So they put me in the front seat of the second bus.

Two African men talked to me about the difficulties of employment while pursuing studies. A half-dozen times a man said to me: “What are you doing here?” Each time I told him plainly: “I am tiying to see how my brothers in Christ are treated.”

Arriving at the bus station in the dark, I figured I had better go home for some coffee and morning Mass. I wish the shelter had given us some morning coffee and a couple of slices of bread.

In general, the shelter seemed to be a hard but sufficient provision for dependent people—what you might call sufficiently or survival treatment.

Progress toward a more humane treatment of our fellow human beings is the responsibility of the churches, synagogues, and mosques; indeed, of us all.

—Horace McKenna, S.J.,

in The Washington Post,

October 28, 1978

Contributors

Ms. Augustine Black is a long-time parishioner of St. Aloysius’ Church in Washington. D.C., and a resident of Sursum Corda.

Fr. Thomas Buckley, SJ., is a counselor at Gonzaga High School in Washington. D.C.

John Dear, SJ., worked on the staff of the McKenna Center from 1988 to 1989. He currently lives in Berkeley, California. He is a peace activist and the author of Disarming the Heart: Toward a Vow of Nonviolence (Paulist Press, 1987) and Jean Donovan and the Call to Discipleship (Pax Christi, 1986).

Tom Skrabak Edwards, a former teacher at Gonzaga High School in the mid-1970s, works in Washington, D.C.

Fr. Ray Gawronski, S.J., worked with Fr. McKenna in the St. Vincent de Paul Society for three years and is presently studying theology in Rome.

Fr. Joe Hacala, S.J., worked for many years with the people of Appalachia, and is currently the director of the National Office of Jesuit Social Ministries, in Washington, D.C.

Fr. Joe Hennessey, worked with Fr. McKenna as a Jesuit Volunteer Corps member. Today, he is a diocesan priest in Massachusetts.

Fr. Peter Henriot, S.J., was the director of the Center of Concern, a theological research center committed to social justice, in Washington, D.C., for seventeen years. He currently lives in Zambia, where he works in a parish with the poor.

Joe Hines, a former teacher at Gonzaga High School, currently lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Ms. Alice Jones is an active member of St. Aloysius’ Church in Washington. D.C.

Dr. Veronica Maz is a long-time advocate for the homeless and the poor in Washington, D.C. She is a founder, along with Fr. McKenna, of S.O.M.E. (“So Others Might Eat”), the House of Ruth (a shelter for homeless women), Martha’s Table, and McKenna’s Wagon.

Fr. Joe McCloskey, S.J., a former counselor at Gonzaga High School, is now director of Shalom House, a retreat center in Montpelier, Virginia.

Fr. Bill McMichelman, S.J., is on the staff of the Manresa-on-Severn retreat house near Annapolis, Maryland.

Fr. Richard McSorley, S.J., is the founder and director of the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University. He worked with Fr. McKenna in southern Maryland during the 1940s and 1950s. He is the author of New Testament Basis of Peacemaking (Herald Press, 1985).

Ms. Alverta Munlyn has been a life-long resident of the neighborhood around St. Alosius’ Church. A housing activist and advocate for the poor, she worked with Fr. McKenna on neighborhood issues for many years. Currently, she is co-chair of the St. Aloysius’ Social Concerns Committee.

Fr. Joe Newell, S.J., a former pastor of St. Aloysius’ Church, is now pastor of St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Arden, North Carolina.

Fr. George Quickley, S.J., served the people of St. Aloysius’ Church throughout the 1980s, and currently is a member of the parish staff at the church of the Gesu in Philadelphia.

Sr. Diane Roche is a Religious of the Sacred Heart and an advocate for the poor. She is currently serving as Resident Manager of Sursum Corda Village, a low-income housing development in Washington, D.C., which Fr. McKenna helped found.

Ms. Willette Street is an active parishioner at St. Aloysius’ Church. A neighborhood resident, she was also active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Today, she works with senior citizens.

Ms Janet Vinson grew up with her family in a house opposite the rectory entrance to St. Aloysius’ Church. A member of the St. Aloysius’ Gospel choir, she continues today to be an active parishioner.

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