Clothing the naked in the city

Before he was Pope Francis, Father Jorge Bergoglio lived in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, a metropolitan city of almost 3 million.

Jan 29, 2016

By Rhina Guidos
Before he was Pope Francis, Father Jorge Bergoglio lived in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, a metropolitan city of almost 3 million. He said during an interview with a Spanish-language publication that he loved living in a big city.

But in a homily at Madison Square Garden in New York in September 2015, during his apostolic trip to the U.S., the pope admitted that "living in a big city is not always easy."

He said big cities can "conceal the faces of all those people who don't appear to belong, or are second-class citizens. In big cities, beneath the roar of traffic, beneath 'the rapid pace of change,' so many faces pass by unnoticed because they have no 'right' to be there, no right to be part of the city."

But cities also provide the opportunity to grow, not just professionally, but also spiritually. In cities, the pope said, we encounter "foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly.

"These people stand at the edges of our great avenues, in our streets, in deafening anonymity. They become part of an urban landscape that is more and more taken for granted in our eyes and especially in our hearts."

In Washington, the city where I live, I noticed in my neighborhood a man who is difficult to miss: Tall, with long, misshapen dreadlocks, he walks through the city in any type of weather without shoes or shirt. But that's not what calls your attention the most.

He's nearly naked, wearing, in the rain or snow, or blaring sun, the most tattered pair of denim shorts, barely swinging on his hips with the help of a belt. The atmosphere changes when he walks by, as if no one knows what to say or do, and so the most comfortable thing to do is to keep walking.

I'd seen him on Instagram posts with comments expressing sympathy and sorrow for the plight of the homeless and for those with mental illness.

One day, feeling deeply ashamed to be one of those who walk by in silence, I promised myself I'd talk to him when I saw him next and do something. Months went by before I ran into him, but when I saw him I darted across the street and introduced myself. He introduced himself, too.

Not knowing what else to say, I asked if I could impose on him and buy him a pair of pants and shoes. He smiled at me and said, lucidly, to my surprise, "Well, you can, but I'll probably give them away."

He explained to me that the way he dresses (or doesn't dress) is part of a vow he made a long time ago, but people are drawn to him by his appearance and, quite often, they give him socks, shoes, coats. He, in turn, gives his gifts away to clothe many of the homeless men and women in our city.

"Jesus still walks our streets," the pope said in his New York homily. "He is part of the lives of his people … he is involved with us in one vast history of salvation, fills us with hope. A hope that liberates us from the forces pushing us to isolation and lack of concern for the lives of others, for the life of our city."

This hope, the pope said, "is unafraid of involvement, that acts as a leaven wherever we happen to live and work. A hope that makes us see, even in the midst of smog, the presence of God as he continues to walk the streets of our city. Because God is in the city."

God appears to us when we confront, not when we hide from, our duty to clothe our brothers and sisters, when the one who is comfortable is put in the uncomfortable position of asking: May I clothe you?