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Canterbury Bookstore

Peggy Strelinger, Manager and Librarian 314-721-1502 ext. 340 smsg@mindspring.com

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Sunday - 8:45 am to 11:30 pm
Monday - 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Thursday - 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Friday - 9:00 am to 12:00 pm

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Go to Travel Time for more info

Feb 29 - Women's Retreat

March 1 - Women's Retreat

May 4 - Holy Cross Church

Sept - St. Mark's

Nov - Holy Cross Church

Nov 21-22 - Diocesan Convention

Nov 30 - St. Martin's

Book Review:
Down and Out in Providence: Memoir of a Homeless Bishop

by Geralyn Wolf (Crossroad)
Reviewed by Phoebe Pettingell

When the Right Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, was planning a sabbatical a few years ago, she felt called to experience the life of a homeless person. In common with many of us, she is affected by the sight of so many people forced to live on the streets. They move in a monotonous round between day shelters, feeding programs and night shelters, carrying their few possessions with them. They are buffeted by the bureaucracy that makes poverty hard to escape and they feel the disapproval many Americans have for those who “fall through the cracks.” Bishop Wolf had more personal motivations as well. Her family moved constantly when she was a child, making her feel emotionally uprooted—a kind of homelessness in itself. Early in her ministry, she was vicar of an inner city parish in Philadelphia. She remembered those years as “a raw and bawdy truth, filled with passion and energy.” Those people were “alive with the earthy banter of street life. Lovin’ and cussin’ went hand in hand, as did profound need and generosity.” Now, she lived a bishop’s schedule of constant phone calls, meetings with important figures in the diocese and community, church events to plan and crises to field. Afraid of losing touch with the most crucial aspect of her vocation, she felt God was calling her soul to make a pilgrimage that would bring her closer to the crucified and risen Christ.

So she transformed herself into “Aly Wolf,” altering her appearance so she wouldn’t be recognized by the people who know her as Bishop Wolf, and spent January as a homeless person in Providence. Sometimes she found herself at soup kitchens, served by her own priests and people. She worshiped in her own churches and no one knew her. The reader pours over these scenes, thinking of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen as a gardener, or the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus who met Him as a fellow traveler. They did not recognize their Lord because they were not expecting Him. If Jesus came to us as a street person, smelling unwashed and saying disconcerting words, how would we react?

Being homeless is boring. You spend hours sitting and waiting for harried social workers to fit you in, keeping warm in shelters, trudging from one place to another. You are patronized and ignored. Yet other homeless people welcome you. They show hospitality even to those who are crazy or drunk or on drugs. It can feel dangerous and scary, but there is also genuine love and compassion. Many of the homeless have not been given the help that would have prevented them from reaching this point. They have been wiped out by expensive medical crises, by family disruptions or by inner demons. Many are children, innocent hostages of their parents’ misfortunes, possibly doomed to the same lot by emotional dislocation and disruption of their education. They are the people Jesus came to save—just as He came to save us. Bishop Wolf also believes that we encounter Christ in the homeless. She writes, “I was tired of a pablum Jesus…The pastoral ministry often sacrifices the painful road to personal transformation in order to maintain a false sense of contentment. In striving to keep people ‘happy’ and appease dissatisfaction, we sacrifice the power of the Cross. Entering the absolute poverty of Jesus’s rejection, loneliness, and eventual death is the only way to experience His Resurrection. Unless we identify with the crowd that cries, ‘Crucify him. Crucify him,’ we have yet to claim the fear and anger, envy and sloth that dwell within us. Failure to admit our participation in perpetuating the plight of the poor and rejected inhibits us from receiving the freedom and new life that we desperately seek. I know that if humanity is to inherit the kingdom of God, it will be because the poor have opened the door.” Preach it, Sister!