Justin always seems shocked that I remember his name. It’s such a small thing, but it sure seems to mean a great deal to him. He’s homeless, but he says being homeless in New York is much better than being homeless other places. He tells me about the coffee place that always shares caffeine and sandwiches. I run into him outside a supermarket — I suspect I’m far from the only one who picks up an item or two at his request. But the more important thing is the name — he says people talk with him here. They care about him, and want to know where he sleeps. It’s not the ideal, but he knows he is not alone.
Just after being released from a hospital, Pope Francis in his Palm Sunday homily seemed to be talking about Justin and the rest of us walking about in our busyness. He was talking about the tremendous love that Christ demonstrated in his Crucifixion. “Why did it have to come to this? He did it for us. There is no other answer. For us. Brothers and sisters, today this is not merely a show. Every one of us, hearing of Jesus’s abandonment, can say: for me. This abandonment is the price he paid for me. He became one with each of us in order to be completely and definitively one with us to the very end. He experienced abandonment in order not to leave us prey to despair, in order to stay at our side forever. He did this for me, for you, because whenever you or I or anyone else seems pinned to the wall, lost in a blind alley, plunged into the abyss of abandonment, sucked into a whirlwind of so many ‘whys’ without an answer, there can still be a hope: Jesus himself, for you, for me.”
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