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My name is Kristelle
Angelli and I’ve been director of the Saint Vincent Pallotti Center of Boston
since September 2000. I love the
work that we do for a variety of reasons. Promoting
volunteerism, especially when it’s faith-based, is always a win-win situation.
Volunteer programs and social service agencies gain volunteers to help
them continue their invaluable service to those in need, and volunteers are
given the privilege and powerfully transforming experience of serving God in His
poor. As long as I can
remember, service to the poor has been close to my heart.
I can think of many experiences that helped open my eyes to reality of
poverty, but the following two were the first to come to mind. When I was a kid,
my Dad took me to New York City. Although
I grew up not far from Boston, I guess I had never seen a homeless person.
When I noticed a woman asleep on a street corner, I asked my Dad where
she lived. He explained that she
lived right there on the street. Apparently,
I couldn’t grasp the concept, because all night I kept saying to him, “No, really,
Dad. Where does she
sleep?” It was one of the first
times I can remember that I realized poverty exists. I also remember
how, as a teenager, when I would go out with my Grandmother, often she would
bring a bag of clothes and we would leave them in a public restroom in the city. After, we’d go outside, sit on a bench and wait a few
minutes. My grandmother would say,
“Let’s just sit here for a minute and see how quickly someone will take
it.” She would say a prayer that
a woman with a family in need would find the bag.
And sure enough, within a couple of minutes, someone would walk out with
it. I was always amazed at how many
people there were in such need right in our backyard.
As I got a little
older, opportunities for organized service projects presented themselves. I was always deeply touched by these experiences,
particularly working at a soup kitchen in Lynn called My Brother’s Table.
We’d serve dinner and eat with the guests.
I was drawn to these types of experiences. They seemed to me to be
“real”. I didn’t
understand why at the time, but I always felt fulfilled while serving.
Something deep inside me was awakened.
I always felt alive. Perhaps one of the
most moving volunteer experiences for me was sophomore year in college when I
spent a week at a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C.
My Alma mater, St. Michael’s College in Vermont, has a very active
office called M.O.V.E. (Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts).
Each year they offer numerous alternative spring break opportunities.
One year we went to C.C.N.V., the largest homeless shelter in the
country, and spent the week living in the basement of the shelter and
volunteering. We served meals,
cleaned bathrooms, brought blankets and coffee to people in the street, spent
time with the guests and all walked away changed.
I was so deeply touched by that experience that I spent the rest of the
academic year working to gain support and financial backing to bring someone on
staff at the shelter, a former homeless man, to come to St. Michael’s to
speak. I wanted everyone to
experience what I did on my trip. However, throughout
my high school and college years, I had turned away from my Catholic Faith.
Actually, at some point, I decided I no longer believed in God.
I even encouraged others to stop believing, thinking He was for the weak.
But, while spending two years in Aix-en-Provence, France, during and
after college, God, in His Mercy, showed me His love in a profound way.
With much prayer and study, my difficulties with the Church were resolved
and I began to see the astonishing wisdom and truth of our Faith. Over time, I eventually came back to the Church and to a
close relationship with God. In the past five
years or so, I’ve focused my personal volunteer efforts on serving the
spiritually poor as well as the materially poor.
The Church teaches that there are Spiritual Works of Mercy and Corporal
Works of Mercy. The former
being to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the
imprisoned, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, and bury the dead.
The latter are to admonish the sinner, instruct the ignorant, counsel the
doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries and
pray for the living and the dead. In
recent years, I’ve focused more on the Spiritual Works by volunteering on both
the parish and the archdiocesan level.
One of my favorite
activities has been serving on the youth ministry core team for the past three
years at my parish, Immaculate Conception in Salem.
Every Sunday night we celebrate Mass and organize an evening - social,
educational, spiritual or service-oriented - for teens, as well as several
retreats per year. On the
Archdiocesan level, I’ve worked with the Director of Pro-Life Education
talking with teenagers about the dignity of all human life, from conception
until natural death and every moment in between.
I believe to truly respect each human life, at every stage, is the key to
all social justice issues. I’ve
also enjoyed serving on the Spiritual Development Committee of the Office for
Young Adults where we began a program called “Theology on Tap”.
Organizers reserve the back room in a local bar and invite people to come
listen to a speaker address a controversial, or not-so-controversial, issue
related to Church teaching, spirituality, etc.
It has proven very successful in providing an opportunity for people to
ask questions about the Church in a non-threatening atmosphere.
And there’s something about seeing priests and nuns file into the back
room of a bar that really grabs attention! In light of my
experiences, I now realize that volunteering is so fulfilling because, in
creating us in His image and likeness, God built into us a need to give of
ourselves to one another. We are
all hungry to know God, to experience God, which is why encountering Him in the
poor is always powerful and transforming. Saint Augustine
said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God.
But unfortunately, society tells us if we own enough things, drive the
right car, date the right person, etc., we will be happy.
I think most people realize that this is a lie, but many don’t know
God’s love, so they continue to fill themselves with things that aren’t God.
Some will tell us that we can find happiness without God, as I used to
think, but seeking fulfillment apart from God is always in vain.
God alone can satisfy the depths of our being.
We are made for Him and nothing less. St. Vincent
Pallotti strongly believed in every Christian’s call to serve Jesus in the
poor. But to love Jesus in others, we must know Him, be in
relationship with Him, abide in Him. For
some, volunteering is a search God, whom they don’t yet know.
For others, it flows from the indescribable love they have come to know
in Jesus. No matter where people
are in their spiritual journey, it is our goal to help them find opportunities
to serve, whether it be spending two years in a third world country or giving an
hour a week to residents of a nearby nursing home.
I pray that many
people will generously answer God’s call to serve Him by serving the poor,
both materially and spiritually. I
also pray that through volunteering, God will draw many people into deeper union
with himself and deeper love for their neighbor, especially those most in need,
so that we’ll come to know and live what St. John declares in his first
letter: “The way we came to
know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our
lives for others.” (1John 3:16).
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Introducing...
Kristelle Angelli!
