For the past 10 years I have been a member of The Federation of North American Explorers, a faith- based youth movement for people aged eight to 17 that promotes the Catholic faith and is defined by acts of service.
On those two Wednesdays, my siblings and I spend the afternoon making sandwiches to hand out to homeless people scattered around the streets and parks of Toronto. We walk around the downtown core in some of the city’s roughest neighbourhoods where drugs, crime and desolation are rampant. The specially trained guides who accompany us through the Street Patrol/Feed the Homeless Program run out of St. Patrick’s Church in downtown Toronto provide us with security.
Before we embark upon our tour with backpacks and rolling suitcases filled with food, we take time to pray on the steps of St. Patrick’s Church. During our prayer Lucio Abbruzzese, Street Patrol organizer, reminds us to be prepared to “be the face of Jesus to those we are about to serve and also to see the face of Jesus in those we are about to serve.”
This statement resonates with me because the Bible states that we are all created in God’s own image. We are all sculpted from the same perfect loving hands. As a result, we are drawn to love and care for one another and our earthly environment as God loves and cares for us.
“We are the same blood, you and I,” is a motto from our pledge, written in our FNE Timberwolf Handbook. To hurt another is to hurt oneself; to love another is to love oneself.
When I look into the tired faces of the homeless men and women to whom I hand out homemade sandwiches and freshly poured drinks, I see the face of God. I see my own face. For I too long to be loved, long to be deemed worthy of respect, long to be validated as a precious creation.
I stop briefly to chat and learn about their world, the heartbreaks which linger and the fading memory of joys from long ago. I hear stories of the past successes, homes, families and loved ones lost. I see evidence of mental illness, hopelessness and despair. But in the midst of quiet gratitude for the meal I have just provided, I see longing to connect. Perhaps it is longing to connect to another or to reconnect with God. Perhaps through my act of service, they may realize that they have not been abandoned and that God is still with them, seeking to protect them, showering His love upon them.
As I reach out to them with a simple sandwich and a smile, I see the face of Jesus, and it is pure love that calls me back each year to serve.
(Macedo-Van Horne, 17, is a member of the Federation of North American Explorers.)