Who is my neighbour...
St. Anne's & St. Catherine's have been part of the Birmingham Churches Night Shelter during February &
March 2016.
March 2016.
Hospitality for Homeless at the Heart of the Year of Mercy
On the first Monday of Lent 2016, the Presbytery door at St Anne’s Parish in Digbeth, Birmingham, opened to welcome twelve guests to sleep in warmth and safety, to enjoy good food, company and support. On this evening and for the subsequent evenings through to Easter Monday this hospitality has continued; the men ranged in age from one youthful 20 something through to a few who were fast approaching the 3 score year and ten mark. Many of our guests were from Eastern Europe: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland with a small number from other cities within the UK.
For the past 2 years our Parish Priest, Mgr. Pat Browne and a small group of parishioners have joined members of Redditch St. Vincent de Paul group, walking in the city centre at night to befriend and provide food for the ever increasing number of homeless people who sleep and squat on the streets of our bustling second city with all its grandeur.
These people were treading in the footsteps of Blessed John Henry Newman who in the mid 19th Century, prior to establishing the Oratory Church in Birmingham, founded the Parish of St Anne’s on the site of a former gin distillery. In those days the Parish met the needs of migrants from across the country along with those from across the Irish Sea who had been forced to leave their rural homes to find work in the burgeoning industrial city which was the workshop of the world and the cradle of the industrial revolution.
A century later, the migrants who settled around St Anne’s Parish were the economic migrants of the post-war years. A significant number came from Ireland and from war torn Europe in search of work. They lived in Victorian back-to-backs and terraces, cheek by jowl with the factories of Bradford Street and Digbeth which blackened the sky with heavy smog at the close of each day. The Parish at this time was served by a team of priests, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who, in the charism of their founder, the 19th Century Eugene de Mazenod, reached out with hospitality and faith to the people they found around them and to the strangers at their door. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s these Oblate priests ran vibrant YCW ( Young Christian Worker) groups in the parish and so helped to inform and shape a social conscience in the young people of the day. Some of those former YCW members and The Friends of St Eugene are active members of the parish of St Anne’s today - so hospitality is a well-established feature of life and faith in the Parish.
Today the Church of St Anne’s with its tall spire stands proudly on the corner of a largely derelict Bradford Street and in the shadow of the glistening, silver skyline of stores in the City. With one priest and a congregation which comes from across the City, the gospel is lived and shared with those who come to the doors. The Parish is formally linked with St Catherine’s Parish, Bristol Street and additional support from that community has been important. The decision to join with Birmingham Churches Night Shelter who have been running church based night shelters since 2014 in a dozen churches across the City was an obvious next step for our communities as we endeavour to live a witness to the gospel command to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger at our door.
Meetings and training sessions were held during the Autumn months with 40 volunteers signing up to take part in the venture and form a team working to alleviate the pain of cold, loneliness and isolation which is a feature of life on the streets.
Fr Pat found just the right man for the job of co-ordinator of the project in Eugene Renehan: a local man, he himself had spent some time on the streets and describes them as being the scariest times of his life. He liaised with Birmingham Churches Night Shelter Lead Co-Ordinator, David Bebb, and with his cheerful, optimistic, buoyant manner kept all involved in good spirits throughout.
Teams of volunteers quickly formed to take responsibility for the range of jobs which needed to be done; getting beds and bedding, making beds, managing laundry, buying food, cooking meals, washing up, providing social engagement and support as well as managing communication across the network of 40 volunteers who live all over the city. Masters of industry and commerce could take lessons from the teams with their co-ordinated efficiency with each one gravitating to the job and role which best suited their talents, gifts and capacity to give time to the project. The quality which marked each contribution was the boundless energy and generosity along with the belief that each and every one of us, guests and volunteers, stand equal in the eyes of God and there but for the grace of God, go any one of us. The task of providing overnight supervision was the duty those compiling the duty rota most feared to be a challenge to cover.
However, the big hearted response and commitment to the project was overwhelming with us being able to provide 4 volunteers for each overnight session (10.00pm -7.00am) with some volunteers being ‘disappointed’ not to be on that shift. Having 4 on duty meant there was the chance of some sleep for each volunteer at some stage in the night. Although for many of the teams they chatted through the night and responded to the needs of our guests in the small hours of the night and morning.
The logistics and organisation with all Health & Safety, and house rules in place was a massive achievement made possible through good teamwork and tutoring from Birmingham Churches Night Shelter. Lessons have been learnt but all has gone well and as is so often the case in such ventures volunteers have gained so much themselves. A plenary meeting has been planned and volunteers from St Anne’s will join with other city teams in a service of thanksgiving after Easter. Throughout the whole project our parish community has supported in practical ways but most crucially through their
daily prayer for success and safety for all involved. One hope we share as a parish is that other parishes will participate in the Birmingham Churches Night Shelter scheme next year.
It has been the lesson in life and love that has given us all a renewed sense of the complexity of life for homeless guests and volunteers alike and it has served to remind us that all of us are journeying through this world trying to be our best. As the project concludes for this winter, this is one of the most profound outcomes and the fruit it will bear may be known only to God.
During the evenings our guests dined in the Presbytery dining room at the long table, which had all the finesse of parish houses from a bygone era. On that first evening, a handful of volunteers joined the guests at table to be sociable. For the first night it was not an easy relaxed dining experience despite the excellent shepherd’s pie. The guests felt strange and unfamiliar; perhaps for some the reminder of earlier happy family meals was too painful. Perhaps they felt patronised. However, as the weeks passed this changed and laughter and chat filled the room as the 2 youngest school aged volunteers served the meals.
The beds were made up in the Church; at the outset we had feared that for some being in a church may bring them discomfort. How wrong we were and how humbled we were as they respectfully arranged their nests for the night. Some genuflected, many blessed themselves, one lit a candle at the altar of Our Lady and another at the altar of St Anne. As one bedded down on the first night he told Fr Pat that he was grand and comfortable at the back of the Church as he said that with the sanctuary light on the altar ‘the Lord was keeping watch on him’.
As the weeks passed, the men and the volunteers relaxed. As they arrived each Monday, they did so with increased bonhomie and a happy confidence. We learnt their names and they learnt ours. Meal times became relaxed with laughter and confident requests for second helpings. On the fifth night Archbishop Bernard dropped in and mingled and chatted with guests and volunteers.
After the evening meal, some went out into the yard for a smoke, some played dominoes, some rested, two read their novels and on the fourth evening a young man who had joined the group for the first time played a guitar loaned to him by a member of the Parish music group who had fortuitously just dropped in that evening. Despite language barriers and diffidence, they talked and played as they sat on the steps of Our Lady’s altar. Perhaps a small miracle there: the chance encounter which may through the universal language of music and parish connections beyond the volunteer team lead to the break that young man needs to get himself off the streets; he joined the volunteers at Mass next morning at 7.30 am. The following week the youngest member of our parish music group and her father played Polish polkas and waltzes which of course had our guests and volunteers dancing in the aisles and the young man playing the guitar.
Of course there can be no naivety about the perils of life for our guests and the many, many homeless in our country.
One or two of the men who came the first evening did not return. As the weeks went by, circumstances had led to one or two others dropping off but others came. The reasons are complex and point to the fragility of any connections made, despite all the warmth and hospitality of the Parish community.
Volunteers have spoken about how they have learnt anew, that one wrong twist of fate or wrong turn in life can lead to a lonely life on the streets. In today’s economy, that possibility is all the more likely. The need for action is so urgent.
I believe the Catholic communities of St Anne’s and St Catherine’s have been enriched by the experience of walking with our guests and feeling that although our work is but a drop in the ocean of the problem of homelessness, in the words of Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, ‘if that drop was not there, the ocean would be all the less.’
As we celebrate Easter we pray for our guests and for the many homeless not touched by this project: we hope and pray that our Parish and others around the City will be strengthened in resolve to give witness to the daily Resurrection possible in all our lives when we work with mercy and love with all we meet.
Mary C Keelan
On the first Monday of Lent 2016, the Presbytery door at St Anne’s Parish in Digbeth, Birmingham, opened to welcome twelve guests to sleep in warmth and safety, to enjoy good food, company and support. On this evening and for the subsequent evenings through to Easter Monday this hospitality has continued; the men ranged in age from one youthful 20 something through to a few who were fast approaching the 3 score year and ten mark. Many of our guests were from Eastern Europe: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland with a small number from other cities within the UK.
For the past 2 years our Parish Priest, Mgr. Pat Browne and a small group of parishioners have joined members of Redditch St. Vincent de Paul group, walking in the city centre at night to befriend and provide food for the ever increasing number of homeless people who sleep and squat on the streets of our bustling second city with all its grandeur.
These people were treading in the footsteps of Blessed John Henry Newman who in the mid 19th Century, prior to establishing the Oratory Church in Birmingham, founded the Parish of St Anne’s on the site of a former gin distillery. In those days the Parish met the needs of migrants from across the country along with those from across the Irish Sea who had been forced to leave their rural homes to find work in the burgeoning industrial city which was the workshop of the world and the cradle of the industrial revolution.
A century later, the migrants who settled around St Anne’s Parish were the economic migrants of the post-war years. A significant number came from Ireland and from war torn Europe in search of work. They lived in Victorian back-to-backs and terraces, cheek by jowl with the factories of Bradford Street and Digbeth which blackened the sky with heavy smog at the close of each day. The Parish at this time was served by a team of priests, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who, in the charism of their founder, the 19th Century Eugene de Mazenod, reached out with hospitality and faith to the people they found around them and to the strangers at their door. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s these Oblate priests ran vibrant YCW ( Young Christian Worker) groups in the parish and so helped to inform and shape a social conscience in the young people of the day. Some of those former YCW members and The Friends of St Eugene are active members of the parish of St Anne’s today - so hospitality is a well-established feature of life and faith in the Parish.
Today the Church of St Anne’s with its tall spire stands proudly on the corner of a largely derelict Bradford Street and in the shadow of the glistening, silver skyline of stores in the City. With one priest and a congregation which comes from across the City, the gospel is lived and shared with those who come to the doors. The Parish is formally linked with St Catherine’s Parish, Bristol Street and additional support from that community has been important. The decision to join with Birmingham Churches Night Shelter who have been running church based night shelters since 2014 in a dozen churches across the City was an obvious next step for our communities as we endeavour to live a witness to the gospel command to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger at our door.
Meetings and training sessions were held during the Autumn months with 40 volunteers signing up to take part in the venture and form a team working to alleviate the pain of cold, loneliness and isolation which is a feature of life on the streets.
Fr Pat found just the right man for the job of co-ordinator of the project in Eugene Renehan: a local man, he himself had spent some time on the streets and describes them as being the scariest times of his life. He liaised with Birmingham Churches Night Shelter Lead Co-Ordinator, David Bebb, and with his cheerful, optimistic, buoyant manner kept all involved in good spirits throughout.
Teams of volunteers quickly formed to take responsibility for the range of jobs which needed to be done; getting beds and bedding, making beds, managing laundry, buying food, cooking meals, washing up, providing social engagement and support as well as managing communication across the network of 40 volunteers who live all over the city. Masters of industry and commerce could take lessons from the teams with their co-ordinated efficiency with each one gravitating to the job and role which best suited their talents, gifts and capacity to give time to the project. The quality which marked each contribution was the boundless energy and generosity along with the belief that each and every one of us, guests and volunteers, stand equal in the eyes of God and there but for the grace of God, go any one of us. The task of providing overnight supervision was the duty those compiling the duty rota most feared to be a challenge to cover.
However, the big hearted response and commitment to the project was overwhelming with us being able to provide 4 volunteers for each overnight session (10.00pm -7.00am) with some volunteers being ‘disappointed’ not to be on that shift. Having 4 on duty meant there was the chance of some sleep for each volunteer at some stage in the night. Although for many of the teams they chatted through the night and responded to the needs of our guests in the small hours of the night and morning.
The logistics and organisation with all Health & Safety, and house rules in place was a massive achievement made possible through good teamwork and tutoring from Birmingham Churches Night Shelter. Lessons have been learnt but all has gone well and as is so often the case in such ventures volunteers have gained so much themselves. A plenary meeting has been planned and volunteers from St Anne’s will join with other city teams in a service of thanksgiving after Easter. Throughout the whole project our parish community has supported in practical ways but most crucially through their
daily prayer for success and safety for all involved. One hope we share as a parish is that other parishes will participate in the Birmingham Churches Night Shelter scheme next year.
It has been the lesson in life and love that has given us all a renewed sense of the complexity of life for homeless guests and volunteers alike and it has served to remind us that all of us are journeying through this world trying to be our best. As the project concludes for this winter, this is one of the most profound outcomes and the fruit it will bear may be known only to God.
During the evenings our guests dined in the Presbytery dining room at the long table, which had all the finesse of parish houses from a bygone era. On that first evening, a handful of volunteers joined the guests at table to be sociable. For the first night it was not an easy relaxed dining experience despite the excellent shepherd’s pie. The guests felt strange and unfamiliar; perhaps for some the reminder of earlier happy family meals was too painful. Perhaps they felt patronised. However, as the weeks passed this changed and laughter and chat filled the room as the 2 youngest school aged volunteers served the meals.
The beds were made up in the Church; at the outset we had feared that for some being in a church may bring them discomfort. How wrong we were and how humbled we were as they respectfully arranged their nests for the night. Some genuflected, many blessed themselves, one lit a candle at the altar of Our Lady and another at the altar of St Anne. As one bedded down on the first night he told Fr Pat that he was grand and comfortable at the back of the Church as he said that with the sanctuary light on the altar ‘the Lord was keeping watch on him’.
As the weeks passed, the men and the volunteers relaxed. As they arrived each Monday, they did so with increased bonhomie and a happy confidence. We learnt their names and they learnt ours. Meal times became relaxed with laughter and confident requests for second helpings. On the fifth night Archbishop Bernard dropped in and mingled and chatted with guests and volunteers.
After the evening meal, some went out into the yard for a smoke, some played dominoes, some rested, two read their novels and on the fourth evening a young man who had joined the group for the first time played a guitar loaned to him by a member of the Parish music group who had fortuitously just dropped in that evening. Despite language barriers and diffidence, they talked and played as they sat on the steps of Our Lady’s altar. Perhaps a small miracle there: the chance encounter which may through the universal language of music and parish connections beyond the volunteer team lead to the break that young man needs to get himself off the streets; he joined the volunteers at Mass next morning at 7.30 am. The following week the youngest member of our parish music group and her father played Polish polkas and waltzes which of course had our guests and volunteers dancing in the aisles and the young man playing the guitar.
Of course there can be no naivety about the perils of life for our guests and the many, many homeless in our country.
One or two of the men who came the first evening did not return. As the weeks went by, circumstances had led to one or two others dropping off but others came. The reasons are complex and point to the fragility of any connections made, despite all the warmth and hospitality of the Parish community.
Volunteers have spoken about how they have learnt anew, that one wrong twist of fate or wrong turn in life can lead to a lonely life on the streets. In today’s economy, that possibility is all the more likely. The need for action is so urgent.
I believe the Catholic communities of St Anne’s and St Catherine’s have been enriched by the experience of walking with our guests and feeling that although our work is but a drop in the ocean of the problem of homelessness, in the words of Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, ‘if that drop was not there, the ocean would be all the less.’
As we celebrate Easter we pray for our guests and for the many homeless not touched by this project: we hope and pray that our Parish and others around the City will be strengthened in resolve to give witness to the daily Resurrection possible in all our lives when we work with mercy and love with all we meet.
Mary C Keelan