I met Ann last year when I was pregnant with Nicholas. It was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. My husband and I both cried at the Gospel reading that day:
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.
At 41, 17 years after my last pregnancy, I was five months pregnant and just two days prior, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, an ultrasound revealed that I was expecting a son and that, in spite of my age, there were no obvious abnormalities. The reading seemed to be custom-made for us and, when my husband ran into a former acquaintance in the vestibule after Mass, we shared our joyful story with her.
Ann said that was "nice" and then launched into a breathless barrage of complaints about her ex-husband and the family court system and how they "screwed" her. She had lost much of her custody of her three children because she had not followed the court order properly.
The following summer, my husband ran into Ann again. Ann was six months pregnant and in even deeper trouble. She was not sure if her boyfriend was going to marry her. Shortly after that, Ann called us, asking for help. Her boyfriend had abandoned her and she was unable to work because of her pregnancy. Although I am sure we appeared very successful to Ann, we were not in a very good financial position at that point; we gave her gas money several times and took her grocery shopping from time to time. We had her over for dinner frequently. We listened to her lamentations, then gave her sound Catholic advice about how to repair her life.
As far as taking care of her material needs went, I figured she could get public assistance, including food stamps, medical care and some cash to get by. And our city has a well-organized system of crisis pregnancy centers. The one in our part of town is supported by three Catholic parishes plus other Christian churches. I personally knew dozens of homeschooling families who sent monthly checks to the center, and I assumed the three parishes contained hundreds of other such pro-life donors.
First blow: Ann could not qualify for public assistance because technically she did not have any children. She had less than 50% custody of her three children. The baby was not born yet, and according to the welfare worker, did not count.
The crisis pregnancy center was not helpful either. They had absolutely nothing to give clients except a pep talk about keeping their babies. The monthly donations they received amounted to only a couple hundred dollars. One generous donor paid the rent for the center's commercial space every month. The three local parishes ignored the center, except for the Christmas "giving trees."
Certainly there would be help for this woman through the Catholic social services system. What about the weekly collections at every parish for this or that good cause and the millions donated each year for the annual Catholic Appeal? Catholic Charities has a small food bank and also offers psychological counseling on a sliding scale. That's about it.
My next step was to call our local parish (not the neighboring parish, where we had run into Ann last Advent). Our pastor told me I should not do anything to help Ann because I might become "codependent."
I did not call Ann's parish because I knew that the monsignor there had intervened and forbidden another parishioner from giving Ann money for rent. He had then told Ann he did not care if she and her new baby became homeless. This was no surprise to me, since that same priest had tried to talk me into aborting my daughter when I was 18. I had heard over the years that he had changed and had become pro-life, and I had heard him give some pro-life sounding homilies, but now I wondered.
Then came the fateful day in November. Ann called us one morning, crying hysterically. She had gone so long without paying rent at her apartment that the sheriff had come to escort her out. Her abusive ex-boyfriend had showed up with some family members, demanding that Ann give up her two-month-old daughter to the boyfriend's sister, who wanted to adopt a baby. This was apparently his plan for getting out of paying child support.
We did not have much to offer Ann. She came at a time when we were living on the edge, wondering if we could put gas in the cars until the next paycheck. But clearly we had to take her in. Our only daughter had a large bedroom with a private bath and a trundle bed. And she thought it would be cool to have a little baby in her room. Ann's three older kids were with her four days a week after school and overnight every other Friday and Saturday. Her kids and ours were already friends, and they were happy to play together after school. Feeding dinner to four extra people challenged my culinary skills, but I got a new crock pot cookbook and, with careful planning and thrifty shopping, possibly saved money compared to my previous cooking habits. It was quite a bit noisier and more chaotic in our house between 3:00 and 8:00 p.m. now, but the children were joyful and our home was teeming with life and holiness.
I figured this living arrangement would be short-term. I planned to help her appeal the welfare office's decision, get on public assistance, and then find an apartment she could afford. She became a sort of unofficial live-in nanny at our house, watching the baby while I taught school, doing housework, driving our kids here and there. This took a lot of pressure off of me. I couldn't help but think that most people would have to pay a lot of money for that kind of assistance around the house.
More than two months after she reapplied for welfare, Ann finally was approved for aid — about $100 in cash and $200 in food stamps. Although she could not get any assistance for her three older children because they lived with her less than 50%, her child support for those children was subtracted from her aid for the new baby.
Since she obviously could not find an apartment in San Diego for $100 per month, we decided to rent her our downstairs family room (which was originally a studio apartment anyway, with a kitchen and laundry facilities).
In trying to discern what we should do with regard to Ann, we re-read the chapter on hospitality in one of our favorite books, The Family Cloister: Benedictine Wisdom for the Home by David Robinson (Crossroad). This wonderful book shows how the Rule of St. Benedict can help guide Christian family life. The chapter opened with a quote from the Rule: "All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ."
Admittedly, taking an outsider into one's home is not for everybody. In this situation, Ann was a member of our church and an old acquaintance of my husband. She shared many of our values (although she came to us a very un-informed Catholic) and respected our ground rules. Her emotional issues have proven manageable. In fact, she has matured a great deal while living with us. She is trying to learn from us, sampling from our bookshelves and reading everything from Dr. Laura to Catholic Answers. At times, I have felt like I was being impolite, telling her bluntly where I think she has gone wrong, but she has been quite appreciative of the guidance. I note that, during her many years of membership in a Catholic mother's group at her parish, not one of those devout ladies was brave (or rude) enough to "instruct the ignorant" before, during or after Ann's divorce and tell her that she has to accept some suffering in her life in order to be a good Catholic, rather than pursuing some soap-opera-inspired vision of a happy marriage.
Right before Christmas, Bishop Brom came to the parish and gave a terrific homily about how Christians must love until it hurts. At a pancake breakfast after Mass, Ann said she had never heard that until she met us and now she sees that she was wrong to leave her husband. The pastor — the one who told Ann to hit the streets — stopped by our table and said hello nervously, then walked away. Nothing like, "Oh, how nice. You're the family who's helping Ann." I can't help but wonder why this hard-hearted man wasn't tough enough to tell Ann, even once, that she was sinning by abandoning her marriage and by living with her boyfriend, or to deny her communion, or to take her non-Catholic boyfriend aside and talk to him when he came to one of the kids' First Communion ceremonies.
Back when Ann first started coming to our house for dinner-and-advice sessions, my husband and I briefly discussed the possibility of letting her live with us, but dismissed it as unworkable. People just don't do things like that for a virtual stranger. We had our own problems to think about. There were many people at her parish with more money than we — let them help her. But when she showed up at our door in tears, holding her darling baby girl, with nowhere to go, we knew what God expected of us.
"All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ."
The Corporal Works of Mercy
To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To comfort the imprisoned
To bury the dead
The Spiritual Works of Mercy
To instruct the ignorant
To counsel the doubtful
To bear wrongs patiently
To forgive offences willingly
To comfort the afflicted
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