Encountering a Beloved Saint on his Feast Day

I saw the man sitting on the sidewalk outside the Starbucks as I went in. I’ve encountered him there a number of times along with his wife who often begged in the same shopping center from her wheelchair. As I left the store with my two large dark roasts in both hands, I heard him softly calling to me. Not wishing to engage him with my hands full, I took the coffees to my car, placed them on my roof and then turned back to the man on the sidewalk, pulling the $20 bill from my stack I keep for panhandlers, and walked back to engage him.

It’s my habit to shake the hands of panhandlers who are willing to do so. I look them in the eyes and ask how they are doing. And then I listen. I feel that the recognition of their humanity, listening, looking directly at them, being willing to touch them, is always more valuable than whatever pittance I might offer monetarily though I always give them $20.

I had had conversations with this man in this same location over the past couple of years. Today, I struggled to remember his name. “My name is Leonard,” he said, and I responded, “Oh yes, I remember now, Leonard. How are things going?”

 

A Litany of Heartbreak

I think he was initially a bit taken back that I inquired about his life until he realized we had spoken like this before. But his story this day was grim. His wife had had a heart attack and was in critical care at a local hospital. The day after her hospitalization he had gotten news that his Mother in Detroit had just died of stage 4 liver cancer. And he still is jobless. As hard as it was to hear that heartbreak, I can only imagine the weight of carrying it daily.  

He told me that he was certain he would be able to gather the remaining $21 to pay his rent at the weekly hotel across the street so I left that to him. I did not want the basis of our engagement to be strictly economic in nature. I sense there’s no small amount of self-serving condescension and magnanimity in that kind of engagement. But when he mentioned my $20 would go toward his lodging at the weekly rental hotel across the street, that sparked my curiosity.

I’d visited the hotel years ago when it first opened. So I asked, “What is it like now?” I was unprepared for his response. “Much better since the drug bust last week.” “The drug bust?” I asked. “Yeah, the cops busted the dealers in the place and about 13 of them were arrested. It’s been a lot quieter since then and a lot more peaceful.”

I suddenly found myself thinking back to my days at UF when I had twice discovered that one of my roommates was a drug dealer. In both cases, there were weapons present in our shared space which I was unaware of until the supplier came around to collect from my dealer roommates. I remember how terrifying that was. So I can only imagine how Leonard felt about his current housing in light of that bust. And I had an instant recognition of how fortunate my life had become since those shaky days in Gainesville. Of all the things I might have to worry about these days, weapon bearing drug dealers is not among them.

 

Stumbling Over My Good Intentions

I learned in seminary that there is often little a pastor can say or do that will fix the suffering s/he encounters in pastoral caring. Of course, for many helper types like myself, this presents a real challenge. We want to make things better but we can’t. And so we were taught that in such cases, the ministry of presence is all we have to offer but that often that is precisely what the other needs most. There is something profoundly reassuring in knowing that one is not alone in their suffering.

I wished I had heeded that teaching this morning. But I found myself blurting out the advice my Dad always gave me when I was struggling: “You know, when you are at the bottom, the only way to go is up.” “Yeah, that might be,” he responded.

But I knew at that moment it was a cheap reassurance that was not mine to give. While that maxim my Dad ground into me over the years has often proven reassuring to me in enduring the difficult times through which I have suffered over my lifetime, I also know that whatever bottoms my middle class life has descended to over the years probably bear little resemblance to the darkness and the depths folks like Leonard are facing.

Stumbling over my glib tongue, I realized it was time to go. “Blessings, Leonard” I said as I turned to walk away. At that moment he lit up, quickly reassuring me that he knew G-d was with him, a statement I instantly affirmed and then simply repeated my one word prayer for him as I walked away. “Blessings.”

I got back to my car, still regretting my thoughtless comment to Leonard, and took the coffees off the roof to put into my console. As I began to slide into the driver’s seat, I suddenly heard The Voice whispering in my ear: “These are your parishioners, now, Harry.” I lost my breath for a second, only to hear The Voice continuing, “This is what being a post-institutional priest looks like.”

 

Ministry Outside the Walls

It was at that very moment that I realized this was the Feast of St. Francis. Later this afternoon I will return to my beloved parish to bless the animals at the liturgy we set aside for them each year. While I cannot celebrate or preach this year, the first time in 13 years, I can still bless. And I do not need any bishop’s permission to do that.

When I got home and pulled up my email, I found today’s reflection from Richard Rohr. Not surprisingly, Rohr, a fellow Franciscan, was speaking of Francis on this, his feast day. Here’s what jumped off the page at me:

Francis…saw all things as likenesses of God (vestigia Dei), fingerprints and footprints that reveal the divine DNA underlying all living links in the Great Chain of Being. Creation itself—not ritual or spaces constructed by human hands—was Francis’s primary cathedral, his resting place in God, which then drove him back into the needs of the city. It’s very similar to Jesus’s own movement between desert solitude and small-town healing ministry. The gospel transforms us by putting us in touch with that which is much more constant and satisfying, literally the “ground of our being,” and has much more “reality” to it, rather than theological concepts or the mere ritualization of reality. 

And that was the moment it clicked in my head: Francis was a post-institutional priest, called by G_d to serve the Creation outside the walls of the church even as he kept one foot still inside the religious establishment. His time in Creation (contemplation) drove him back into the city to engage people like Leonard (action). Francis had no guidebook to do what he did. He simply sought to follow the example of the Jesus he found in the Gospels, another post-institutional priest who also found his ministry outside the walls. Like them, I find my Cathedral in Creation itself beginning with my daily prayers said barefoot in my beloved Jungle, which drives me back into the city where my encounters with the divine occur with persons unlikely to be found within the walls of institutional religion.

Persons like Leonard.

Like Jesus and Francis, I have no guidebook to follow. But I have a strong sense of a calling to be open to the unexpected and willing to act upon it, like this day’s encounter with Leonard. And hearing The Voice whispering to me as I left him reminds me that, like Francis and Jesus, I am never alone. The Holy One is always with me and with all of Creation.  Deo Gratias.

On this Feast of St. Francis I am encountering the spirit of the humble poverello of Assisi, the saint whose way I follow and who in turn sought to follow the Way of Jesus I, too, seek to discern and follow. For all of these blessings on this day when the Christian world celebrates my beloved patron, I am grateful. As we Franciscans often say, “Peace and All Good!”       

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frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

 

© Harry Scott Coverston, 2026

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