• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Thursday, March 23, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Diocese

Seminarians take to the streets to share faith, hope

Monday, July 19, 2021

Seminarians Wesley Castañeda, from left, Dale Sullivan, Kevin Kolker, Manuel Mora and Michael Ingram walk a street near downtown Dallas on July 2 as part of Christ in the City, a missionary effort aimed at serving the poor and homeless. (BEN TORRES/Special Contributor)

By Kevin Kolker
Special to The Texas Catholic

Communion. This word best captures my experience of collaborating with Christ in the City while encountering the poor on the streets of Dallas. For three weeks our group of seminarians and lay missionaries started and ended every day communing with God in prayer, most especially at Mass. We lived a joyful and robust community life together at Holy Trinity Seminary. Then this overflowed into a communion of friendship with those we met on the streets each day in our apostolate.

Christ in the City, a vibrant and growing lay missionary group from Denver, Colorado, has worked with Dallas seminarians these past two summers so we can live out their mission both now, and God willing, as priests. That mission involves going out in groups of two or three to areas where many homeless live or gather, carrying some basic necessities like water, snacks, and clothing. However, we are not social workers. Our main goal is not to provide services or even to get the homeless into housing. Rather, we are disciples of Jesus Christ trying to live out our baptismal call to mission, seeking to encounter the poor in friendship. In this way, we aim at the heart of the issue of homelessness; beneath every surface problem — joblessness, drug addiction, mental illness — lies some broken communion with God or with neighbor.

It’s no coincidence that the through-line in all this is the word “communion.” As Catholics, hopefully that word makes us think of our reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at Mass. Rightly so. Yet, as Saint Mother Teresa loved to emphasize, love for Jesus in the Eucharist helps us to love Jesus in the poor. There is only one Jesus after all, and we know from his own words that, in different ways, He is truly present both at the altar (Jn 6) and in the outcast (Mt 25).

Every encounter with Jesus Christ should transform us. When we receive the Eucharist we are invited to “become what we receive,” in the words of St. Augustine. Pope Francis offers us an analogous challenge when encountering Christ in the poor: “we need to let ourselves be evangelized by them” (Evangelii Gaudium, 198).

I was jolted by that suggestion when I first heard it. After all, I was the one going out to them, and wearing a clerical collar, no less! Shouldn’t I be the one evangelizing? But then I experienced it. One of my new friends on the streets near Deep Ellum shared his story with me. “When I was 27, I had a house worth $400k,” said this gruff man of at least 50. “But now,” he continued while standing beside his dirty mattress under a noisy overpass, “I feel like I have more than I had back then.” What made the difference? In short, his radical poverty led to radical vulnerability, vulnerability to trust in God, and trust to a peace that the world cannot give. The one who became poor for us made him rich in what truly matters.

It’s providential that my friend was 27 when he lost his material wealth. That’s my current age and, had I not entered the seminary, I might have owned a home of similar value. In that moment I realized the razor’s edge that separates me from someone I might otherwise think is so unlike me. One of my brother seminarians said it best: “Last summer I saw Christ in the poor. This summer I saw myself in the poor, which was scarier.”

Once a week, those seminarians serving in parishes this summer continue visiting our friends on the streets. As we do so, I am moved by these interactions that transcend mundane economic and political categories, replacing exchange with encounter and results with fruit that will last. Joyful communion: this is what happens when we live the Eucharist.

Kevin Kolker is a seminarian for the Diocese of Dallas studying at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, La.

  • Tags
  • charity
  • Diocese of Dallas
  • Faith
  • Stewardship
  • Vocations
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article Synod of Bishops publishes list of commission members
Previous article Faithful Obedience and Fraternal Correction

Related Posts

Making wishes come true Diocese
Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Making wishes come true

Bishop offers dispensation for St. Patrick’s Day Diocese
Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Bishop offers dispensation for St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick Catholic School Academic Fair Diocese
Wednesday, March 8, 2023

St. Patrick Catholic School Academic Fair

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.