Following St. Francis as a Capuchin Franciscan
Brother Kevin Crowley, O.F.M. Cap., who comes originally from West Cork, founded the Capuchin Day Centre on Bow Street, Dublin, in the early 1970s. The Centre offers an invaluable service of food, shelter and simple kindness and has grown from a small operation to an essential feature of support for the homeless and marginalised in Dublin.
The disciples said to Jesus ‘Where are we to find food to feed so many?’
Jesus replied ‘Feed them yourselves!’ Matthew 14:13-21
Some times, particularly on Wednesday morning (Food Parcel Day) we feel a bit scared here in the Centre when we look at the queue and someone says ‘It’s down past May lane’, and we wonder will we have enough supplies so that we don’t have to refuse anyone.
Thank God, due to the incredible goodness of ordinary people, this has never happened in all the years we have been operating. I get a bit angry when I hear negative talk about people’s faith being dead and that the Celtic Tiger has made us more selfish, because from my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. I can say without any hesitation, that people today, particularly young people, are as kind, considerate and caring as they ever were. If anything people are more generous to us since they heard of the plight of people who are in need of help during the current recession. Although our costs have dramatically increased with more people falling into poverty, the generous response of the public has meant that we are able to keep abreast of the demand.
You might wonder how this ‘mustard seed’ apostolate to people in need started. Well, those of us old enough to remember the end of the ‘swinging sixties’ will know that while most of the Dublin’s inner city was thriving, some people were having difficulties coping with life and many became homeless or had to live in hostels. Each day people came to the friary door in Church Street looking for food, and some would gather at the back of the church for heat or to keep out of the rain. The Capuchin Order felt this was an undignified way for people to spend their time, and so the Day Centre was founded. From very
humble beginnings of providing soup and sandwiches for about fifty people, today the Centre is recognised as one of the biggest food services in the city, providing up to five-hundred meals a day. Each Wednesday, we provide around one thousand grocery parcels for people who find it difficult to manage on social welfare benefits. We have a medical service, shower facilities and other day care activities. All this costs a great deal of money, and while we are grateful for the third of our funding that came from the government, were it not for the wonderful Christian generosity of people that God sent to us, we could not operate this place of hospitality and refuge for people who – for the most part – are forgotten.
Over the last forty years, literally thousands of people have visited the Capuchin Day Centre, and while many of the people who come are similar to those who called to the friary door back in the 1960s, over the years we have had to respond to the different social forces that left people in need of our help, i.e. the closure of psychiatric hospitals in the 1970s, the impact of unemployment in the last recession in the 1980s, the emergence of the drug culture that devastated the lives of families and communities in the 1990s and, since the turn of the century, the new communities who came to Ireland seeking a better life for themselves and their families but failed to ‘make it’ and found themselves stranded (much like the Irish who emigrated during the 1950/60s).
In the past year our numbers have doubled due to the ‘new poor’, people who up to a year ago were at the top of the social ladder, and today do not have enough to feed their families in the current recession. We are living in very challenging times and like the people in the Gospel story, we must constantly keep looking out for the goodness in people to keep each other going.
I have always loved the Gospel reading of the feeding of the multitude because it brings Jesus so close to our humanity. It is such a comfort to realise how compassionate a person Jesus is, someone who is not only concerned with our spiritual wellbeing, but is also acutely aware of our temporal needs. He felt sorry for the people because they were in a desert place and had no food. While I am no theologian, in St. John’s account of this story, I feel Jesus used the generosity of the little boy in the crowd, who was willing to share his lunch of loaves and fish, to perform such a wonderful miracle. This amazing miracle sets the standard for true Christian sharing which is evidenced in so many ways here in Ireland today, but is specially witnessed by us here in the Capuchin Day Centre, which is based in the very heart of the city of Dublin.
The people who help us come from all sectors of society. We receive help from people of all ages, religions, and from every corner of the country and even from abroad. We have people who literally go ‘begging in the street’ with charity collections, young professionals who organise and take on various charity challenges, people who organise charity balls, golf outings, sales of work, coffee mornings, charity walks, marathons, office collections, school fasts and raffles, church collections, charity nights, table quizzes etc. all with one aim in mind: to be of assistance to our brothers and sisters who need a bit of help to make their life a little easier.
We are helped by people who have remembered the poor in their will and the ‘widows mite’ contributions who have faithfully sent us in donations year in, year out, since we first began. If I live to be a hundred I can never stop thanking God for the goodness of people.
Like those who help us, the people who avail of the service come from all walks of life, and as someone once said, we are all only one pay cheque away from poverty. In the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi (the Father of the Poor) we operate an open door policy, and because we feel it is hard enough for people to come for food, we do not pressurise people by asking them questions, or keep statistics except for child protection purposes. We have no illusions that we are solving homelessness but are simply giving people a place of respite and in some small way fulfilling our basic mission focus of relieving the hardship for people living on the margins.
Apart from the physical demands of providing such a service, staff and volunteers of the Centre invest a good deal of emotional energy in the work. Despite the numbers, people are not merely statistics, and it is with deep regret that we note the untimely deaths of many homeless friends over the years. Some of these people died on the side of the road without anyone to care for them. However, I’m sure that Jesus and his blessed mother welcomed them with great love and they now enjoy what they did not have on earth – a home where they are loved and respected.
Working with people whose lives are in such difficulty can take a great emotional toll on our staff and volunteers, but our motivation and inspiration to keep going comes from the people themselves. Just think how much courage it takes to face another day for someone who has slept rough the night before, and does not know if they will have a bed to sleep in tonight. How do they keep going? Think of the parents who want exactly the same good life for their children as everyone else, and who simply do not have the money to provide it. Our dream for the future is that one day there will be no need for such a service as the Day Centre, and that everyone will have the social and financial resources to live life to the full as God intended.
Finally, to all the friends of the Capuchin Day Centre, those who support us financially and otherwise, and to all our friends who it is our privilege to work with, I leave you with the blessing of St. Francis.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
May He show His face to you
and have mercy on you.
May He turn to you His countenance
and give you peace.
(Blessing of St. Francis of Assisi)
Bro. Kevin Crowley o.f.m. cap.
Capuchin Day Centre,
29, Bow Street,
Dublin 7.
Phone: 01-8720770