Her name was Anna*. She was sitting alone in the park, eating the lunch we’d just served to hundreds of Denver’s homeless. It was half-way through my mission trip with Christ in the City—which I talk about in this post—and due to circumstances, I wanted nothing more than to leave Colorado.  

I managed to push through the heaviness in my heart, walked over, and asked to sit with her.  

Not even a minute passed, did she begin spilling her life story and thanking me profusely for being there. My already-broken heart broke even more as I listened to the experiences of hurt in her family. All I could do was simply listen and gladly receive her pain, even as I carried my own.  

At one point, though, I felt vulnerable enough to share a piece of myself, as she did with me.  
 
“To be honest, Anna,” I said, “I’m really struggling right now, too.” 

Immediately, it seemed as though she forgot her own burdens as she began to reassure me so kindly: “Oh, honey, it’s gonna be okay. God’s got you, you just have to have faith...” 
 
She took a tiny, silver figurine of Mary from her bulging backpack of necessities...gifting it to me. And if that wasn’t enough, she also pulled out a small prayer card.  

“You can have this,” she told me, “I pray it every night before bed.” 

It was a prayer for healing. I wanted to cry.  

Being poor 

     I’ve been doing street ministry for three years and am still in awe of the way many of the homeless bare their deepest wounds to strangers like me when given the chance. Yet this was the first time I somewhat assumed their position—even  just for a moment—in a setting where I would have been the “proper” minister.  

   In this moment of being “the poor one” for a sliver in the conversation, I was blown away with the unexpected consolation I received from this woman...this woman who lived from the things in her backpack yet chose to be generous with me in her own need.  

  Too often we approach charity with a savior complex. We may not even be aware of it, but we may start thinking, “I’m going to make it all better.” While there is nothing completely wrong with this attitude, it can form a power imbalance between the minister and the recipient.  

    To be poor with the poor, I think, means to simply be authentically human with them. First, it involves awareness of our own imperfections, knowing that none of us escape the effects of a fallen world. Our hardships may vary in kind and gravity, and some of us may be flourishing in one area of life compared to another.   

But before the all-powerful, all-perfect, Creator of the universe? Who are we, with all our limitations (especially sin), to say we are better off—even only in a few ways--than our brothers and sisters, when standing before God in His infinite goodness?  

This awareness must inform the way we interact with “the least of these.” 

 To be poor, ultimately, is to know who we are before the Almighty: human beings in need of a Savior. We cannot save, only He can. We can only help. Only then, are we free to love those on the margins with purer hearts, seeing them not as charity cases, but as equals. 

*name changed

Hazel Jordan is an Office & Communications Assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes. She is currently pursuing a Master's in Theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. A recent graduate of the University of St. Thomas, she continues to be active in the faith community there, leading and developing a street ministry program that forms students to encounter the homeless in the Twin Cities. Among other things, she is a self-taught artist and musician, proudly acquiring graphic design and guitar/songwriting skills!