From Death to Life

Years of drug addiction had defeated Wayne Richard.  Unemployed and homeless, he felt beaten by the loneliness and physical misery of living on the streets.  His future looked hopeless.  So hopeless, in fact, that one day in 1999, while seated beneath a highway bridge in Chicago, Richard put a pistol barrel in mouth, intending to end that misery.  Just them, although he was completely alone, he heard a voice.  "Get up," it ordered.  "Leave here.  There's something else I want you to do."

Richard's resolve to kill himself died that day.  "Twenty seconds later, I just felt life was going to turn around," Richard recalls.  "I had no idea how that was going to happen, but I felt that I would have peace, that I would have a place where I could be of use....I still didn't have much of what makes a quality of life," Richard later acknowledged.  But he did have hope.

 

Wayne Richard reported to a shelter, and there he joined a 12-step program, eventually meeting Father Bill Creed on a retreat for the homeless.  Over the next 15 years, the two men would grow a retreat service for the homeless that would spread to 20 cities.  Based on the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the exercises stress surrender to God's unconditional love and guidance in daily life, through prayer and reflection on the Gospel.  The program, recognizing addiction as a major factor in homelessness, blends the spiritual exercises with the first few steps of AA's 12-step program.  Both programs emphasize honesty with oneself and with others.  Both programs require participants to acknowledge that they cannot control their addictions by themselves.  Both programs focus on the individual's complete dependence on God, and the need to surrender to God's will.

 

Father Bill's activities invite retreatants to consider God's presence in their lives, reflect on the Gospel, share their histories in an emotionally safe setting, and write a personal letter to an equally personal God.  The participants are removed from the streets and immersed in peaceful surroundings that encourage them to connect with God through nature.

 

AA's founder Bill Watson described "spiritual hunger" as a prerequisite for recovery.  Those who come on the retreats for the homeless have that drive, according to the director.  That's why they are able to respond so positively to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.  Rekindling their spirituality ultimately helps the homeless improve their material lives also.  Every retreat has a former retreatant working as a tangible witness of hope.  When Wayne Richard was asked to return as a witness of hope, he once again heard that voice under the bridge saying, "There is something more I want you to do."  As he began to reach out to others, his life changed.  The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless hired him to work with the poor.  He rented his own apartment, helped train new teams for the retreats, and encouraged the homeless men he met to attend the retreats.  By that time, he had found his calling.

 

This story is taken from the Feb. 2014 issue of St. Anthony's Messenger.  The Ignatian Spirituality Project helps homeless people connect with God to reinvent their lives, and "people are grateful," says Father Bill, "for this connection to God."

 

In reading the Confessions of St. Augustine, I see the same pattern repeated, even though on the surface there would seem to be no connection at all.  Though far from homeless, Augustine had a great spiritual hunger that could not be satisfied by philosophy, rhetoric, women, games, friends, etc.  He needed a spiritual home to anchor his life:  our hearts are made for Thee, O Lord, and they are restless til they rest in Thee.  Though not homeless, Augustine could not find "rest" in any of the palaces the world had to offer him.  His was also a journey from death to life.  Looking back on his life after his rescue from anguish, Augustine was able to articulate -- due to his early education in philosophy and rhetoric -- the presence of Christ in him, pulling him from the grave to eternal life.  No matter who we are, our spiritual hunger is real and must be met if we are "have life and have it more abundantly."  Augustine's book is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the Divine Presence and Love of God who "reached down from on high and took hold of [him]; he drew me out of deep waters....he brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me" (Ps. 18:16-19). 

In both the case of the homeless and of Augustine, it was the Word of God that eventually "sobers them up" and breathes life into lifeless hearts, bodies, and minds.  The Word of God is as strong, active, and living today on the streets of Chicago as it was in 387 AD, when Augustine received it with hunger and thirst.  I am convinced that it can still change lives today if we are willing to give it a chance.