For the past couple months I have been regularly ministering to the guests, volunteers, and staff of André House of Hospitality in addition to my parochial ministry at St. John Vianney Catholic Church & School. I have witnessed great faith in the guests we serve at André House: powerful signs to me that Holy Cross is indeed making God known, loved, and served and saving souls day by day among God’s people in the streets of Phoenix, AZ.
I have had a lot of interesting conversations and crazy introductions to the guests of André House. Some of the guests I remember from when I was a seminarian on placement at André House several years ago. Many more faces are new, rather than old, however. One new guest to me is No-Name because when you ask him his name, he just circumvents the question. Case in point: “So, how should I call you?” I asked No-Name one day. “I’m Eternal Father!” he told me, eyes bugging out of his head. “Man, you ain’t the Eternal Father!” I said. “No-Name responded: “You know the King of Kings? The Lord of Lords?” I said, “Yes I do: Jesus Christ!” “Amen!” he said, and then proceeded to tell me all about what Adam and Eve, Noah, the Samaritans and Abraham Lincoln all have in common: “They’re still alive! Underground!. . . baby whale’s blood is keeping them alive!”
Fair enough, I guess. You know what? I think I’ll just let No-Name be No- Name.
One day as I was welcoming folks into André House for our dinner service, I made eye contact with a woman I had not met before. “Are you the priest here?” she asked. “Yes! Hi, I’m Father Andrew” I said. “What’s your name?” “Nice to meet you, Father Andrew,” the woman responded. “I’m a child of God. Undercover Angel.”
What if instead of addressing ourselves by name we addressed ourselves by the mission we’ve been given that day? With our job description as Christians? St. Paul says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God…And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heir with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Maybe No-name has a point. Our names will fade away. The mission however, endures forever. Sharing in Christ’s suffering to share in his glory. We who have professed vows in the Congregation of Holy Cross know that on the day of our profession the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience became our job description and our way of life. It is a daily reminder to clothe ourselves in Christ, the New Man. It is a call to minister alongside our confreres, with whom we wish to live and die. Our names do not live on. People may remember them – praise the Lord. They may remember our good deeds, charity, pastoral zeal, and prayers. Blessed be God. But one day all this will pass away. What will remain is the knowledge and love of God in Christ Jesus: our identity as children who became heirs to the kingdom, and to what degree we became undercover angels whose movement towards glory was dependent on how they reproduced the likeness of Jesus Christ by the manner of their life.
Fr. Andrew Fritz, C.S.C.
Publish 11 October 2024
