The weather in this part of the country has been brutal over the past few months. Record-setting snowfalls have created chaos with traffic. Temperatures dipping into minus 28 degrees have made it feel like minus 30 with the wind chill factor. 

Driving downtown once the car had heated up, I was able to relax and appreciate the feeling that it felt like I was coming home again after my two-week respite from downtown when the treacherous and icy roads were barely drivable. 

Another record was set that evening when I had to increase my clothing to five heavy layers to combat the frigid temperatures. As I walked to the downtown core to where most of the homeless congregate, I noticed there were places with no spaces and spaces with no places, but by and large most people seemed to have found a respite from the cold in churches or shelters. 

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One man caught my eye as he slowly made his way to a shelter, and I have mentioned him before in these columns. He was shuffling along with a walker, one painful step after another, barely lifting his head as he passed. He had no gloves on, and as he passed there was a nod of recognition and then back to his slow, tenacious journey. It reminded me of one of the “Paths to Holiness” of the Community of the Configuration in Scotland, “Know that what we have to endure is as important as what we can do.” 

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Indeed, it is on evenings like this that I slowly come to understand that there are many ways in which we meet Jesus in the Church on the Street, often in the guise of the homeless, the suffering, and the addicted. But we must stop and listen to their stories, listen to their pain, listen to their hopes and dreams, to see hidden behind their appearance the suffering Christ. As another “Path to Holiness” reminds us, “Know that what is foolish and of no account in the eyes of people, is often wise and important in the eyes of God.”  

I continued to the downtown core where most of the addicted and homeless are found, and as I approached, I could hear a commotion from across the street. It was taking place in a little plaza where a man who was clearly under the influence of drugs was threatening someone in a car, shouting and running after him as he slowly pulled away. “What’s happening over there?” I asked a couple of men who had witnessed it all.

“You know, the usual” they said. “Looks like one of them has taken too many drugs and he is going crazy. His friends are trying to stop him.”

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I had reached a church where most of the addicted and homeless usually congregate in the area, and not surprisingly there was no one outside in the cold. The church, inside and out, is a haven for those who need refuge from the cold, or a place to hang out with friends. Around it there is a group of people, addicted as they may be, who find there a community where they are accepted and understood. Through the years I have been privileged to be allowed to join them and listen to their stories.

I then went searching for the two sisters from an African country who are on the streets as prostitutes. It has been about 10 years since we first met, and to be accepted by them has taken tenderness and patience to be allowed to share their family history. They were not on the street, which is often routine with them when the colder weather closes in. Finally, as regular readers know, I ended the evening as I always do, to pray to Chilly in the doorway where she died of an overdose, and to put the ministry of the Church on the Street into her hands, that she will lead me to those who need healing, forgiveness and hope on the streets.