Wednesday, 12/2/15
Yesterday morning, I
was reading, “The Lord is my
Shepherd, I shall not want,” and I was puzzling over how I might use it in a
homily, when a friend called with a story about the Psalm.
Do you know about
Father Greg Boyle? For forty years he has been working with Los Angeles street
gangs; and he has four hundred former gang members working in his “Homeboys
Industries.”
My friend’s story
was about Father Boyle saying Mass for a street gang. At the Responsorial Psalm he slipped on the
response, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want.’” What he actually came out with was, “”The Lord is my
Shepherd I shall not want;” and five times the street gang thundered it back at
him that way.
Their Homeboys Industries
operates their own Restaurants, Housecleaning crews, and Gardening teams. Their most
successful enterprises are three clinics for tattoo removals. They started on
them after an ex-con complained to Father Boyle that no one wanting to hire
him. Father Boyle suggested that possible
employers might be put off by the “F*** You” tattoo across the boy’s forehead.
Father Boyle’s Homeboys
have a slogan that Mother Teresa gave them. It is “We are all kin.” With the
Lord as our shepherd, we are one flock.
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