Take St. Clare, whom we celebrate this month, for instance. She was fiercely courageous, but in her own quiet way. She left behind the life she knew—and all its comforts and certainties—to follow Francis. That took courage. Francis also had his ways of showing courage, which took the forms of fighting in war, denouncing his father, and embracing the leper. You can read how Clare and Francis’ courage can inspire us in “The Courage to Change: Wisdom from Assisi.”

You will also find other calls for courage in this issue, which was put together during the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota. The editorial on page 19 reminds us—once again—that we all have a role in fighting racism, and my Faith and Family column addresses the anger of a mom, who acknowledges the privilege of her family.

Right now, we all need to find a way—whatever it looks like—to be courageous and speak up for what is right. Even if we stumble or get it wrong, we must channel the tenacity of St. Clare and promise, “I will try again tomorrow.”

Yet the Emancipation Proclamation—which freed slaves—while necessary and critical, did little to end racism. Robin DiAngelo wrote in her book White Fragility, “Race is an evolving social idea that was created to legitimize racial inequality and protect White advantage.” We first created an economic system based on slavery and inequalities and then developed the science and theology to justify the system.

In his book Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi wrote, “The beneficiaries of slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration have produced racist ideas of Black people being best suited for or deserving of the confines of slavery, segregation, or the jail cell.” In other words, we didn’t start with race; we created race to justify our system.

A Long and Bumpy Road

In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson created a commission to investigate the race riots that had been going on in Watts, Newark, Detroit, and elsewhere across the country. The Kerner Commission was tasked with answering the question of what happened. After all, we were only a few years removed from the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The commission consisted of eight White men, one White woman, and two Black men.

This was around the same time that Eldridge Cleaver released his book Soul on Ice, which became the manifesto of the Black Power movement. It was also the time that candidates started running on a new status quo motto of law and order. All 11 members of the commission, including the two Black members, had been openly hostile to the Black Power movement and openly embraced the law-and-order motto. Very little was expected from the commission.

But when the report was issued in February 1968, it shocked America by stating that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one White—separate and unequal.” Martin Luther King Jr. called the report a “physician’s warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life.”

Richard Nixon used the report to create the Republican Southern Strategy. Johnson used it to create more police intelligence units to spy on Black Power movements. Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress used the report to support increased federal spending on police weapons, training, and riot preparations. Most in power on both sides of the aisle used it to promote fear.

What’s in a Word?

These days, many of our political and religious leaders claim to not be racist. But in his 2019 book, How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi wrote: “What is the problem with being not racist? It is a claim that signifies neutrality. . . . But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘antiracist.'” In other words, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Kendi adds that “there is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.'”

Many White people believe that because they have a Black friend or coworker they cannot be racist. They believe that if Black people were more like White people, then everything would be OK. This idea was embraced by folks as diverse as Cotton Mather and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and many in the antislavery movement, and even Black leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass.

It is an idea that is alive and well today. Just look at the reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Missteps of the Church

How did we get to this point? How, as people of faith, did our belief system become so convoluted that we would accept slavery and today racism? In 1840, the US Catholic bishops issued a statement on slavery. While some argued that the slave trade was immoral and wrong, others argued in favor of the institution of slavery. Bishop John England of South Carolina, in a letter to the secretary of state, argued that to do away with slavery would be a violation of religious freedom: a term we hear a great deal about today to justify discrimination against certain groups of people.

Over 100 years later, in 1958, the US bishops issued a statement calling racism a sin, “a moral evil that denies human persons their dignity as children of God.” But a few years later, when the civil rights movement was in full force, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was planning demonstrations and marches in St. Augustine, Florida. Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. reached out to Archbishop Joseph Hurley, the bishop there. He not only refused to help, but instead had all the parishes read a letter from the pulpit urging Catholics not to participate.

Bishop Hurley likely would never have thought of himself as a racist. German philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Bishop Hurley chose not to act in the face of evil.

Challenging the System

We as Christians often claim to be outraged by racism. We talk about laws and regulations. We even occasionally reflect on our role in promoting the belief that one group of people is superior to another. But are we willing to challenge the system that promotes ingrained racism?

God became flesh not because the world is full of sin, but in order to transform the world into a communion of love centered in Christ. But as Albert Einstein warned, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

I suppose I should feel grateful for being born into the world with so many factors stacked in my favor. And though I do maintain a deep and abiding sense of gratitude toward my family and faith for providing such a strong foundation, I can’t shake this nagging and uncomfortable thought: I have white privilege.

I’m not a racist, I don’t wish to use my position of privilege to “win at life” at the expense of others closer to society’s margins, and it is my hope to see our world become a more equitable one in my lifetime. But what can I do? Where do I even begin? There seems to be a Gordian knot of injustice before me, a tangle of a broken justice system, cutthroat capitalism, fevered nationalism, inadequate access to education and health care for minorities, the subtle seduction of being apathetic to social ills. The list of systemic problems goes on, and racism is tied up in most of them.

Fortunately, like many of the most difficult challenges we as a people and as individuals face, we can turn to faith and each other for strength, wisdom, and courage to guide us in our small steps toward a better world—a place we can rightly call the kingdom of God. Sometimes, events happen that urge us all to step a little bit farther than we thought we could, stretching us beyond our comfort zones.

‘I’m Through’

On May 25—Memorial Day—George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. We can use phrases such as “died in police custody” to rationalize and sanitize what happened, but we’re lying to ourselves and tacitly continuing systemic racism if we do. Two separate autopsies ruled his death a homicide caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained,” according to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s report.

The arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, was originally charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, with the charges later upgraded to include second-degree murder. These are simply the cold hard facts. What we make of them and how we comprehend this event against the backdrop of systemic racism will reveal how advanced or primitive we are as a civilization.

Floyd uttered these words as Chauvin’s knee pressed down upon his neck: “I can’t breathe.” These words—the same spoken by Eric Garner in 2014—both literally point out the brutality of police violence and symbolically characterize the feeling of an entire oppressed people. “I can’t breathe” wasn’t the only thing Floyd said. Among other words and phrases, he cried out “Mama!” and “I’m through.” When I found out that he said those words, my mind went to the scene of Jesus on the cross, his mother weeping below, his voice raised up in anguish to his Father, and these words from John 19:30: “It is finished.”

But we now know that it wasn’t finished, really. It had just begun. Three days later, Jesus rose, and the spark of Christianity would not be extinguished. Two thousand years later, we are called to see the face of Jesus in George Floyd and carry on our work to build up the kingdom of God.

‘Not Being Racist’ Isn’t Enough

As helpless as we may feel during these chaotic times of social unrest piled on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are things we can do. Listening is generally a good first step. And white Americans should listen for as long as they can to hear what their brothers and sisters from minority communities are saying.

The marginalized are often called the voiceless, and those fortunate enough to be born into the power position of being in the social majority have the responsibility to find ways to help them speak out. Sometimes this is done by being quiet and letting their voices be heard. Other times, we may find ourselves in the uncomfortable but crucial position of standing up for the voiceless when no one else will.

Like many people, I would answer no to the question, “Are you racist?” But to effect any lasting change, we need to be more and do more. We need to be actively anti-racist. This means challenging friends, family members, coworkers, and others when we hear something that supports systemic racism. Someone might make an insensitive remark and follow up with, “It’s just a joke.” Others might claim that they’re color-blind and that we’re all just one human family. Or, as I recently experienced, a person might respond to “Black lives matter” with “All lives matter,” a semantic trick that shifts the conversation away from the very real problems of police violence and systemic racism. These moments can seem insignificant, but they’re all drops of water in an ocean of injustice.

During a general audience at the Vatican on June 3, Pope Francis spoke about the civil unrest in the United States. “My friends, we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life,” he said. Indeed, our faith insists that every life is sacred and worthy of protection—yours, mine, and George Floyd’s.

Housed in a nondescript building in the shadow of gleaming skyscrapers and high-end boutiques in Manhattan, Covenant House is a place of refuge and hope for teens and young adults left behind.

The main center for Covenant House, the largest youth shelter in the world, is housed in a timeworn building in Midtown Manhattan. It’s hardly noticeable near the hubbub of the Port Authority, New York City’s bus station.

Nearby are the gleaming towers of the newly constructed Hudson Yards, a testimony to the city’s privilege, where the landscape is overwhelmed by shopping centers dedicated to boutiques of every stripe.

Covenant House began in 1972. It grew out of what was dubbed the Minnesota Strip, a garish neighborhood filled with porn palaces and prostitutes who brazenly promoted their trade. The Minnesota Strip was named for those kids, both boys and girls, who landed on the streets after arriving via bus from the Midwest and quickly falling into prostitution, their Gotham dreams turned into nightmares.

Covenant House offered respite, a place where street kids could get their acts together.

New York is now a different place, seemingly more benign while still bustling. Natives, instead of complaining about porn palaces, gripe about the onslaught of tourists who crowd the sidewalks around Broadway’s theaters. The area, like most of Manhattan, reeks of money and privilege in many places.

Notre Dame Sister Nancy Downing, executive director of Covenant House New York, agrees that the bad old days of the city’s brazen urban tawdriness are largely past. But that doesn’t mean young people are not still being exploited. She estimates that about a quarter of the young people who come to Covenant House are victims of the sex trade, now largely conducted in the shadows and via the Internet.

New York, she says, “has changed on a visual level. But we are still seeing young people being trafficked.” On this July day, the streets are steamy. And, in a city where newspaper tabloids still have influence, the newsstand headlines shout about a Manhattan billionaire, with friends in very high places, being charged with sex trafficking of minors.

“People know about it [trafficking], but they don’t say anything,” says Sister Nancy. In many ways, the issues remain similar beneath a different veneer.

There’s a quiet outrage in her voice. Injustice against children was a galvanizing force in Sister Nancy’s vocation. She used to work in the insurance industry but found herself drawn, as an attorney, to assisting troubled youth through legal tangles of foster care, immigration, and other issues.

“I wanted to feel like I was making a difference in the world,” she says. Sister Nancy, now in her late 50s, described her calling as a late one, forged in large part by her interest in helping troubled youth.

A Lifeline for the Forgotten

Covenant House, she emphasizes, offers more than an institutional cot and a hot meal. It is intended as a warm embrace, a religious commitment to the most desperate of young people. It offers a comprehensive approach, a chance for young people to find not only a place for the night but also a way out of their family issues.

The center features a health clinic, mental health facilities, counseling rooms, and a makeshift chapel. The aim is to enhance the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of a population often forgotten in today’s New York.

The approach is intended to help troubled youth navigate the difficult bridge to adulthood. That process can be difficult enough, even for those from prosperous and caring homes. But for children born to the twin plagues of poverty and abuse, the obstacles can seem daunting.

Jason, an 18-year-old Covenant House resident, is in many ways typical. But, like all residents, he has his own story. He’s from the borough of Queens and found himself threatened with homelessness after his landlord evicted him. He’s been at Covenant House for two weeks.

Jason is not without resources. He works as a mechanic at a huge box store in Queens and travels the subway every night to get there, starting work at 6 p.m. and not leaving until 6 a.m. His job involves 50–60 hours a week at $18 an hour, what might seem like a reasonable wage yet is hard to live on in New York’s rental market. He retains a modest demeanor.

“I don’t like asking anyone for anything,” he keeps repeating, seemingly emphasizing the point that his goal in life is not to be a burden on anyone. He is working on getting his high school equivalency.

But circumstances have not been kind to him. He notes that his mother and sister live in a homeless shelter in Queens, so even at his young age there is no real home to go to. He just got a $100 ticket for not paying for a subway ride. Now he’s discovered that Covenant House will provide residents with Metrocards, something he promises himself he will take advantage of.

Shakeema North, director of youth development and interfaith pastoral services for Covenant House, notes that the agency tries to fit in as much self-improvement and support as possible for the typical 60-day stay.

“Many are trying to make their own way,” she says. Much of her work is spent on one-on-one counseling sessions. Jason has been the recipient of an intensive process—it helps that he’s available during the day—which includes art, music, and life skills such as housekeeping and finances.

“We have to give them basic life skills,” says Sister Nancy. There is a kind of social work jargon ring to the phrase. But she quickly offers some perspective to those without a degree in social work. Many of the Covenant House kids never experienced the basics of a loving family life that many take for granted.

One young woman came to Covenant House and was offered a bed. She opted to sleep on the floor. The luxury of a bed was unknown to her. She was comfortable on the floor. “They are not used to having people take care of them,” Sister Nancy says of many of those who come to Covenant House’s doors.

A New Leader and a New Vision

Father Ritter began Covenant House, promoting its reputation as a haven for the scandal of a decadent Times Square, which continued to shock the city’s conscience. In stirring fundraising letters, he focused on vulnerable youngsters coming from out of town who fell prey to the city’s sex industry. He expanded the work of the agency to other US cities and overseas and would speak passionately in more affluent suburban parishes around the city, pointing out the horrors of sexual exploitation of young people just a railroad commute away.

But Father Ritter himself, while a master fundraiser and evangelist for the cause of troubled children, was a flawed figure. At a time when the topic of priest sex abuse was taboo, Father Ritter made headlines. He had been a crusader against child exploitation but was credibly accused of sexual misconduct and financial irregularities. Some thought Covenant House would not survive the human weakness of its founder exposed for the world to see. There were predictions that the agency would fold.

Father Ritter was dismissed by the Covenant House board and lived out his life in obscurity until his death in 1999. While Father Ritter needed to be jettisoned, the concept of Covenant House remained, and the board worked to salvage the operation.

A Daughter of Charity sister came to the rescue in 1990. Her name was Sister Mary Rose McGeady. The new director reworked the fundraising letters, making them closer to the reality of most Covenant House clients. They rarely came from the Midwest, and most were not white; they were largely young minorities from the city’s five boroughs, living through the chaos of crime and family dislocation created by the crack epidemic of the era.

The stories of kids being lured into the sex industries of the city after arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal were toned down, better reflecting the actual work of the agency. The more accurate approach worked. Covenant House was rebuilt on a more solid foundation.

Sister Mary Rose, who radiated both toughness and a concern for youth honed by years in social services, spearheaded the Covenant House comeback, leading the agency for 13 years. She died in 2012.

Fortunately, the crack epidemic abated. Now drug abuse is seen more as a widespread societal issue, not just an urban problem. But Covenant House in Manhattan continues to focus on troubled young people from the city, many of whom exist in the shadows, quietly remaining in all-night venues to deal with the reality of homelessness. About 85 percent of Covenant House clients are from the city, often finding the facility through on-street referrals from other young people in trouble. Or they are referred by police officers and outreach workers who locate the young people on the streets.

In a city that offers so much wealth, power, and opportunity, why do they remain homeless?

The reasons vary, Sister Nancy says. Some come from homes plagued by alcohol and drug abuse. Others are from families, cramped into small apartments with stratospheric rents, who no longer have room for them. Others come out as gay or transgender to their families and are kicked out as a result. Whatever the reason, through four floors of the Manhattan facility, 120 young people are sheltered each evening. Their time is limited to 60 days at the main shelter. A transitional housing facility run by the agency in the Bronx, New York, allows young people to stay for up to two years.

Sixty percent of funding comes from government agencies, the rest from private donations.

Changing Lives in 60 Days

Residents range from 16 to 21 years of age. (Those under 16, by law, can stay for only 72 hours.) Curfew is 9:30 every night, with the exception made for those who have night jobs. Wake-up time is 6 a.m.; breakfast is at 7. Residents then go off for schooling or jobs. The structure itself is a vital life skill for youngsters who often grow up with little guidance.

According to Sister Nancy, the faith dimension of Covenant House remains. No one is prosely-tized, and those who are served come from all faith backgrounds, or none. “We recognize God’s providence,” she says. The religious dimension is a quiet one, appreciated by many clients, she adds. The chapel is often a haven for troubled youth. Donations include rosaries, which are often clutched by young residents, even if they don’t understand or profess the prayers associated with the beads.

While New York is its birthplace and hub, Covenant House now extends across the globe. The agency tries to meet needs in other places as well.

Covenant House now has shelters in more than 30 locations, in large and small American cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Asbury Park, New Jersey, as well as Houston, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. It has expanded internationally as well, with centers in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Canada. The New York model has been replicated in cities and towns both large and small, wherever young people find themselves on the streets instead of with concerned families.

Wherever they are, and wherever they come from, the young people who come to Covenant House are worth the effort, emphasizes Sister Nancy, who tries to educate potential supporters and benefactors about the hard world of young adult homelessness.

Youth homelessness remains an issue with serious misconceptions abounding, she says. One of the most common is that runaways can always go home. But, she says, they usually are not fleeing temporary family squabbles that can be easily patched up. It’s about more than normal family dysfunction.

“If they run away, they have run from abusive situations. They can’t go back. They have been told they are trash,” Sister Nancy says.

From these challenging backgrounds, she sees how the 60-day stays at Covenant House can have a long-term impact. Just a week ago, a young man, a new Covenant House resident, visited her office. He had told his adoptive parents he was gay. He was kicked out and began to feel that no one really cared about him. His talk with Sister Nancy offered a ray of hope.

“I am feeling a little better today,” he told her at a Covenant House barbeque the next day. She sees the young man as slowly working past anger and exploring the deep hurt of his life. These are the minor triumphs that make the work worthwhile.

Sometimes the stories make rags-to-riches sagas. Hannah had been living on her own since she was 13. She came to Covenant House at 18 and was the resident who preferred to sleep on the floor because she was not used to a bed. Hannah earned a 3.96 grade point average at Mount St. Vincent College, through a program sponsored by Covenant House. She is now in New Orleans, entering young adulthood, and working with the Covenant House facility there. She is determined to help those, like her, who are growing up without supportive families.

“She didn’t believe she would be alive at 21,” says Sister Nancy. Hannah is not the only one. Some former Covenant House residents have become doctors, lawyers, and musicians, and are truly gifted, waiting for an opportunity to shine.

Many others have been able to build stable lives for themselves as they navigate through adulthood.

Whatever the outcomes, Sister Nancy says the Covenant House youth represent a simple truth: “These are young people who have experienced homelessness. But homelessness is not what they are.”

Metanoia is a process of change, of deepening conversion. Francis and Clare can be models for us today as we try to live out the Gospel in our own challenging times.

This year has been all about courage and change. Facing a new virus, we now see its ripples spreading unemployment and economic insecurity for millions and upending the education of a whole generation. The uncertainties, stress, and suffering try our souls. COVID-19 has exposed some uncomfortable human truths: We need each other more than we acknowledge; and our radical commitment to one another and our willingness to collaborate are critical to our survival.

The devastating impact of this virus should steer us toward hard questions: How will I commit myself to what really matters? Where should I devote my time, energy, and talents to make a lasting, positive impact on the world? How can I work with others to create greater stability and see the fruits of wisdom, goodness, and love? What systemic change is this time calling forth from us? Now is the time to ask these questions together in a process that draws out our capacity for goodness and empowers us to engage the profound changes that our world requires—a process called metanoia.

Metanoia is a thorough, holistic process of change, rooted in a deepening commitment to goodness. Empowered by God, we place our whole selves in the service of something beyond the mere self. We grow into a coherent, compelling process of change as we see that we are part of a larger picture. Metanoia is the change in our hearts, choices, and actions as we see ourselves as part of a rich and diverse human family.

Courageous change is set in motion as we seek to honor God and one another, taking our place as stewards in the web of creation—trying to love it as God loves it, caring for it and for one another, attending deeply to the well-being of all. If Sts. Francis and Clare were here with us, they would be modeling metanoia just as they inspired it in their contemporaries nearly eight centuries ago.

Clearly, the world has changed a great deal since they lived, but some of our deep human needs have not. In helping us see what is possible when we collaborate with God and one another, Francis and Clare can sensitize us to what matters so that we invest ourselves in a process of growth that leaves no space untouched. Three steps of the metanoia in their lives can help us envision a courageous and hope-filled way forward.

Unexpected Invitation

This stage of metanoia speaks to moments when life hands us something that causes us to question everything. Often this invitation is bewildering; it can be sudden, tragic, and life-changing. Francis of Assisi’s unexpected invitation came in the form of an entire year spent as a prisoner of war.

When Francis was only 16, his father helped fund a revolt of the merchant class, prompting a tragic cycle of violence. The merchants, who could not own land, rose up against the landowning nobles, who fled to neighboring Perugia. Four years later, aligned with the Perugian army, members of the noble class mounted an attack to take back their homes and property.

Poised to inherit his father’s luxury cloth business, 20-year-old Francis rode out with the other young men of Assisi in 1202 to intercept the attacking forces. He was struck down and taken hostage. Facing the possibility of dying in a prison cell in Perugia, Francis began to ask himself what was really worth fighting and dying for. He worried that nothing in his life had been meaningful, lasting, or significant. Confinement and solitude helped him appreciate what was at stake in the values that communities embody.

Clare, only 5 years old during the initial uprising in Assisi, fled with the nobility to Perugia. She spent seven years exiled there, learning to read, write, sew, and manage a household. Clare was being prepared for marriage into another noble family, even as she observed the devastating impact of conflict over property. Although Clare and Francis did not yet know one another, seeds of new life were germinating in two of Christianity’s greatest saints, both displaced from Assisi by war and wondering if there was a better way.

Both Sts. Francis and Clare saw the disruption of war as an unexpected invitation to question “business as usual” and to place integrity and care at the center of the social, economic, and religious norms of their day. Will we today let COVID-19 invite us to a similar set of changes? Can we focus our energy on doing what truly helps people thrive? Can we begin the process of honestly identifying all that is not working in our world so that we can creatively orient ourselves toward a better way?

Eyes to See

How will we know what makes a better way? The second stage in this process of courageous change involves genuine, caring relationships that awaken us to the beauty, fragility, and goodness of life, helping us to experience God in those spaces of encounter. For Francis, this second stage of metanoia occurred in one of the most frightening spaces of the medieval world: a leper colony.

Medieval lepers were forced to live outside the city walls and forbidden human contact. They were prohibited from common water sources—streams, fountains, or wells. As the disease progressed, they lost physical function and wasted away, condemned to a slow, anonymous death in the colonies that set them apart. Like most of his contemporaries, Francis deliberately avoided contact with their misery.

In his Testament, Francis tells us that a singular grace of God led him into a nearby leper colony where, to his surprise, he experienced a surge of tenderness toward them—an outpouring of love and solidarity that he knew was beyond his own capacity to generate. The lepers’ intense need triggered in Francis an equally intense desire to alleviate the suffering of people who had always horrified him. All of this showed Francis who God was and who God called him to be.

This experience was not simply a moment of pity, charity, or kindness; it was a threshold space, drawing Francis into relationships that invited him to change. In addition to gaining eyes to see lepers as his sisters and brothers, the relationships Francis cultivated with them gave him eyes to see the world from their vantage point, highlighting the deep-seated inequities, indifference, and contempt that held its exclusionary structures firmly in place. The coldness and superficiality of his lifestyle were laid bare as Francis now saw the hollowness of his choices, his goals, and his investment of time and energy.

The faces of his sisters and brothers in the leper colony remained with him, permeating his life and keeping Francis from “business as usual” within the city walls. Francis’ growing empathy and solidarity led him to ask himself: Do I really have the right to pursue my own interests when others suffer so greatly? What does my connection with those who suffer mean in my daily life—what I eat or wear, whom I work for, and what I do or refuse to do? These questions gnawed at Francis, who came to see them as a profound grace and a rich invitation to change.

Radical Departure: Beyond Barriers

Artist’s statement: Clare nurses Francis after he has received the stigmata. He also suffered from a serious eye disease. Francis looks at the viewer with invitation and shows his consolation in the knowledge that Clare will keep his spirituality alive after his nearing death.

The third stage of metanoia is a space of decisive action, stemming from all that has been stirring within. Francis’ departure began with an act of tremendous courage, solidarity, and love that shocked his family and friends. Stripping himself naked before the bishop of Assisi, Francis offered his father back his clothing, inheritance, and the status and privilege they represented.

In the valley below Assisi, Francis set about rebuilding churches, laboring with the poor, begging for food and sustenance, and slowly gathering a community of people ready to live out the Gospel in poverty, simplicity, humility, and radical love. Francis and his followers called themselves Lesser Brothers, and it did not take long for Clare’s cousin Rufino to join the community.

When Clare returned to Assisi after the war, this movement was still in its infancy. She helped sustain it with money taken from her dowry, deepening her commitment through conversation with Francis, who clearly admired her determination and singleness of heart. Clare was, from the beginning, more than a patron of the fledgling community. In them, she saw the embodiment of what she, too, wanted: the Gospel way of radical simplicity, solidarity, and care.

Slipping out of her family’s palace late one night, Clare headed to the Chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, recently rebuilt by the Lesser Brothers. Kneeling, she consecrated herself to God as Francis cut her hair and received her vows with the tonsure of religious life. Knowing that rejecting her arranged marriage would stir anger from her male relatives, Francis took Clare to a Benedictine convent protected by a papal privilege of sanctuary for women.

Shortly afterward, men from her family stormed into the church and tried to carry her away by force. Pulling off her veil, Clare joyfully showed them the tonsure that made her at once unmarriageable and fully free to stand as one with the poor. Stunned and perplexed by this turn of events, the men returned to their palace.

Challenging Questions

Most of us today stand somewhere between the radical commitment of Sts. Francis and Clare and the perplexity of those they left behind. In our awareness of the suffering of the poor and marginalized people everywhere, can we allow the COVID-19 virus—the vulnerability it generates and the intensity of human need that it exposes—to give us eyes to see? Will we turn our backs on the inequities of our social structures, or can we contemplate them deeply, letting that insight give us courage to change?

This can be our prayer as we look to our common future: “Give us eyes to see and courage to change.” This simple mantra can lead us into the very heart of what it means to be human, to be a people, a single human community.

Ultimately our relationships with others will give us the courage, motivation, and discipline to make a real break with past patterns and forge something new. When, like Francis and Clare, we allow connection and compassion to deepen into solidarity and kinship, we can choose a new way of being connected to others—one that, Pope Francis assures us, will help us discover “what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.”

It will take courage to acknowledge the inequities in our world and to change the forces that diminish our dignity. How will we begin?

Small Steps to Prophetic Witness

We can start by choosing love rather than fear, remembering that we are not alone but are reaching toward God and one another. In the darkness of our fears of the virus, may we have the courage to allow our connection with God and one another to show us that love is still alive in our world.

Both honesty and angst emerge from the simple words of Francis’ own Testament as he describes his first steps toward courageous change: “No one told me what I should do.” This aloneness taught Francis to turn constantly to God for refuge, strength, and counsel.

We can follow this example by giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the process of change ignited by a genuine, healthy relationship with God. Let us allow the darkness of this pandemic to winnow us of lesser things—so that nothing displaces the invitation to newness in God that each day offers. Let us not delay!

What is more consoling and empowering than knowing that we are loved, that we are not alone, that we can risk ourselves on new endeavors and challenges? We become stronger, more creative, and more resourceful in that space of shared energy that we create with God and one another.

Our character—as individuals, as communities, even as a species, a human family—is at stake. This pandemic gives us new eyes to see the patterns, habits, and systems that have not supported human wholeness or the well-being of our earth. Now is the time to ask the hardest questions about what truly matters. We cannot be satisfied with superficial questions or with inadequate or ideological answers. Thomas Merton once said that the first step of the interior life is to “unlearn our wrong ways of seeing, in order to acquire a few of the right ones.” Let us allow God and those in need to show us the pressing questions of our day.

There are no easy answers to those questions, but one thing we know: In us, with God, there is a capacity to change—a capacity that deepens as we learn the love that is God. May we, like Francis and Clare, have the courage to build together a world that is truly home for all. In our common vulnerability, may we each share the best of ourselves, for, as Anne Frank wisely observed, “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Courage and generosity, the fruits of love, are a prophetic witness in a world that so often lacks both eyes to see and the habit of thinking collaboratively about the common good. As we learn these habits once more, we can forge together a new path toward human flourishing.

Holly Schapker has been painting for over 30 years with installations and commissioned pieces in universities, galleries, churches, and residences across the world. She has a passion for spirituality and the creative process. Her quest for truth, goodness, and beauty is found in every one of her paintings. You can learn more about Holly and her work at HollySchapker.com.

His path to becoming a Franciscan and living a life of service has roots in a clear understanding of what it means to be an outsider in our society. Brother David was born in San Antonio, Texas, but raised first in Granite City, Illinois, followed by Ballwin, Missouri. His family’s immigrant past is not as distant as it is for some in our nation.

“All my grandparents were immigrants who came to the United States in the early 20th century,” he says. “Having grown up in a loving extended family, I learned about the importance of human dignity.”

As a young man, Brother David made a journey that would prove to be pivotal for him. “When I was 21, I made a pilgrimage, hitchhiking across the country,” he says. “It was the beginning of my ‘return’ to the Catholic Church. Around the same time, I also learned about St. Francis of Assisi and was smitten.” In 1989, he made the leap to religious life and entered the novi-tiate with the Franciscan Friars of St. Barbara Province.

A friar for over 25 years now, Brother David has engaged in ev-erything from feeding the hungry to protesting the production of nuclear weapons to standing up for immigrants’ rights. Upon witnessing the work of the Poverello House in San Francisco during the early ’90s, Brother David founded two similar ministries in Nevada—the first in Las Vegas in 1997 and the second in the nearby city of Henderson in 2002.

The two houses in Nevada both dedicated their services specifically to homeless men in need of food and shelter. Unfortunately, the Las Vegas Poverello House had to close its doors in 2014, but the Henderson location continues on, and now has services for homeless women as well.

When Brother David was reassigned to Tucson, Arizona, in 2008, one of the first things he did was start a Poverello House there. It’s not always easy to keep operations going, especially since both are completely funded by private donations, with no reliance on government or diocesan assistance. For more about the services these two ministries provide or to make a donation, visit their websites PoverelloHouseNV.com and TucsonPoverello.com.

Brother David has also spent time ministering to and, at times, saving the lives of immigrants along the US-Mexico border. “Seeing how human beings were suffering, exposed to the elements, and even dying in the desert attracted me to assist existing volunteer organizations that place water bottles in remote areas for the people passing through,” he says.

In 2010, in honor of his many humanitarian efforts, Brother David received the Peace Award from the Secular Franciscan Order USA. “Awards come and go, and so many other people who work quietly—but with heart and commitment—deserve awards,” he says. “Bless all those with the courage to do their little part to make our nation a compassionate one, who are ready to see human suffering and, through love, do something about it.”