Mychal's Message
Christmas 2004
Submitted by Valerie Christo
St. Benedict Catholic Church,
Monhnton, PA
Parish Religious Education Program
Seeing Ground Zero and thinking of the meaning of the cross that was placed there where many lives were taken, including the life of Father Mychal Judge, was a touching experience for me when I went to New York last summer. Coming back to Reading, PA that night made me reflect on Shannon, a young girl who felt touched by Father Mychal dying on September 11 and started a project to keep his memory alive by helping the homeless.
As a Director of Religious Education at Saint Benedict, I thought that I could do something with our 200 students in our Parish Religious Education Program to help Shannon to help our homeless brothers and sisters in New York City. That naked cross at Ground zero reminds me how our Savior was very close to those who own nothing, to those who are very poor.
I am very much familiar with the life of St. Francis of Assisi. One of the high points of St. Francis’ spirituality is seeing Jesus present in the poor. Today we don’t have people with leprosy among us to hug and kiss like St. Francis did, but we have our brothers and sisters who are homeless. I am sure that Father Mychal was following his call as a Franciscan Priest to see Jesus in them. And I am so glad that I met Shannon through my priest who gave to me the address of Mychal’s Message last year. I went surfing this web site and I found that this 14 year old understood why Father Mychal was doing this work with the homeless.
Once the new school year began, I motivated my teachers to follow this Fall project by putting together Christmas stockings for men and women and having their children bringing one required item for the stockings every Sunday. I approached the Senior Citizens in our Parish and I asked them to donate the Christmas stockings and they were very generous by giving us 200 stockings, one for each student to fill out for the homeless. So, since the beginning of October we had these stockings hanging from our classroom desks reminding us that someone out there was waiting for a warming gift. It was so nice to see our children coming for class carrying something to put inside of their stockings. They knew there was someone out there waiting for their gift. At first our kids couldn’t believe that people would ask at Christmas time for such items as toothpaste and toothbrush, soap, shaving cream, deodorant, etc. Inside each stocking, not only did we add toothbrushes and toothpaste, but we added a lot of prayer and a lot of care to each one. I even saw some classes making rosaries and putting them inside of the stockings. Other classes made holy cards for their person. And many of our children decorated their stockings by sampling writing: God loves you, Merry Christmas!
By the beginning of December we had our Christmas stockings ready to be delivered and we made arrangements with Kelly Lynch to meet at Lancaster Crispus Attucks Community in order to give our students a chance to see who the homeless people were. So thirty stocking were delivered there and Shannon’s parents and grandparents took the remaining to NY City. It was a touching experience for our 7th and 8th graders to see them, to visit their shelter and meet personally with Shannon who gave to them a very beautiful witness of her commitment toward Father Mychal’s work. I am very proud of Shannon as a teenager being able to give a message to other teenagers. She said that in lieu of receiving gifts she is choosing to receive gifts that she is able to pass on to the homeless friends. What a great example for our teens in these days!
Through this project I hope that our students learned how fortunate they are and hopefully from now on they should learn not to take for granted what they have. Our goal was to sensitize our students and help them to have a more grateful heart besides learning to share God’s love even by doing one little thing. Like Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say: “Our job is not to do great things but to do little thing with a great love.” So we hope that these 220 men and women will feel loved this Christmas and may the Love of Jesus warm their hearts just by letting them know that someone thought about them.
We are grateful that Mychal’s Message allowed us to take these steps towards meeting the homeless friends.
Here is some feedback from our teens that went to the shelter in Lancaster to bring the stockings:
Zachary wrote: “Going to the homeless shelter made me feel lucky for all the advantages I have. When I was at the homeless shelter I noticed that there was no privacy for people because there were not many rooms and the rooms that they did have were very small. The people that I met in the shelter were the most polite people I have ever met. There was only one television in the room and they didn’t mind complete strangers walking trough their home. Helping give to the people at the shelter really made me feel good about myself this Christmas. I feel like I did my part to help the community and that’s what the Christmas spirit is all about”.
Erin said: “When I first walked into the homeless shelter my first impression was how I would hate to live in a place as cramped and dirty as that. But as I was shown around, I was amazed to see that the people living there didn’t look as sad and depressed as I thought they would be. Visiting the homeless shelter has given me a completely different view of homeless people”.
Rebecca reflected: “Being at the homeless shelter really made me thankful for all I have. I have always taken soaps, food, and a hot shower for granted. Now I realize how lucky I am that I have a house, a hot shower, food etc. So now, I want to give more of what I have to people who don’t have these things. I thank God for all I have; being at the homeless shelter showed me that there are people who need our help. So the least we can do is pray for them and give them donations of things we have to them”.
Andrew’s comment was: “My evening at the homeless shelter was sad and heart warming at the same time. I felt sorry for the kids who had to suffer through that horrible place. But, on the other hand, I felt so good about helping those unlucky people”.
Arielle finalized our reflection: “When I first heard about Shannon’s story I thought it was awesome that this 11 year old girl started such a great thing. I had no idea that when we went to the shelter that we were going to meet her and I was really surprised when I was told that this was the girl who started it all. Shannon is an outstanding person! She is my age and I can’t believe she can do all of this. When I walked into this shelter and saw how the people there were living it made me think of how lucky I was. I thought about all the things I had and was very thankful for everything. And it made me feel a little selfish for all the things I still ask for and I thought that instead of buying myself things, I should really donate things that I have. It was a great experience to go to the shelter.”
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