Walking with Pope Leo during Easter, Episode 3

The Inseparable Bond Podcast: The Community Responds

With Fr. Ron Will, CPPS

“We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor.”

—”I Have Love You,” the apostolic letter of Pope Leo XIV

In his letter Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You). Pope Leo XIV sets forth a bold agenda for the Church’s action in the world. Leo’s message: God’s heart has a special place for the poor, forgotten and marginalized. God hears the cry of the poor, and God responds through you and me.

Each week during the Easter season, Fr. Ron Will sits down with people who have heard this challenge to make “the poor the heart of the church,” and are responding. Listen in as we meet individuals who have applied this challenge in their personal lives and parish lives.

The guests will share ideas about how we ourselves might do something similar in our own circles of influence, never forgetting that “there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor.”

In Episode 3, Fr. Ron talks with Precious Blood Companions Lynda Quistorff and Wynona Wildeman about reviving a parish Outreach Committee to serve the unhoused and hungry in Warrensburg, Missouri.

An excerpt of Episode 3:

Wynona: I enjoyed the classes that we had studying the letter [from Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You).] I volunteer at the clothes closet, so I am involved a little bit with some of the homeless in town and some of the people that are at the drug rehab house in town. Just common ordinary people who don’t have a whole lot. But I missed our parish being active and being out in the community and working as a parish and being known as a parish that is out there to help the poor.

One of the quotes in the letter that I don’t think I’ll ever forget is that the “poor are sacramentals.” I never thought about that. Never. Now I think about it every. It’s not something I had ever heard or ever thought about, the poor being sacramentals.

When Lynda and Iris [Metcalf] and I were talking one day to see if we could get this [parish outreach] committee going again, because we all had served on it. I thought, yeah, this is what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do. That’s why I was there in this class.

Fr. Ron: When you say a sacramental, what does that mean? The poor or a sacramental?

Wynona: To me, it’s representing God. It’s representing Christ. They deserve my respect. They deserve my love … it’s a sign of God’s love to me that I can share with them.

Fr. Ron: When I think of a sacramental, like a crucifix or a rosary, we give respect to it. We don’t casually use it. So the poor, we should not just be casually or ignore them but respect them. We need to deal with them with care.

Wynona: Yes.

Fr. Ron: So you went to the parish council and how did they receive you?

Lynda: Well, they said, we have no money.

And so we said, we’re not asking for money, we’re asking for the restoration of the outreach committee. And so eventually after a lot of back and forth they came around and then [parish pastor] got kind of excited about it, and he’s the one who named us the Dilexi Te Outreach Committee.

[To help make their case to the parish council, Lynda, Wynona and Iris shared quotes from the pope’s apostolic letter.]

Wynona: I think [the parish council members] were surprised at our arguments. They were surprised at our quotes because we were not gentle and did not pick some of the easier quotes. I don’t think they were not expecting us to be as well prepared as we were, because they just kept looking at us like, <laugh> you know what you’re talking about. Like, they were surprised.

Fr. Ron: Well, I think you opened yourself up to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit used you, spoke through you <laugh>.

Lynda: Well, <laugh> I hope so. And the Holy Spirit needs to hang around for this whole process until we really get going. Last weekend we had a little introduction [to the whole parish]. We had a table after Masses with a couple of signup sheets just for names, phone numbers, and email addresses. This was not an invitation to be on our committee. Good grief. We can’t have 20 people on this committee. We’ll never get anything done if that happens. But there are other things that lots of people can do.

So I went through the first part of the [pope’s apostolic] letter again and typed up some of the scripture quotes and some of the saints’ quotes … I cut them into little squares and we put them in a box and we invited people to take one from the table after Mass. And a lot of people did. That kind of surprised me. I wasn’t sure that they would, but they were almost to a person were kind of excited that this was going to happen again.

Watch the video for the full conversation between Fr. Ron, Lynda and Wynona.

Some Background

This series grew out of a study group Fr. Ron led during Lent reading Leo’s apostolic letter. Inspired by discussion during these study sessions, Fr. Ron wanted to have deeper conversations on themes and ideas the group brought up.

Pope Leo’s letter is itself a response to Pope Francis’ last encyclical letter, “Dilexit Nos” (I Have Loved You), which was a moving mystical mediation on the Sacred Heart of Jesus and God’s immeasurable, inexhaustible love of all creation, especially the least among us.

During this Easter Season, let’s pray together for the coming of the Holy Spirit to inspire and energize us to love those whom God loves.

Listen in every Tuesday during the Easter Season, leading up to the celebration of Pentecost.

All of the videos in this series can be found here: The Inseparable Bond Podcast

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[Fr. Ron Will, a Precious Blood priest and spiritual director, is a graduate of Catholic Theological Union and Creighton University’s School of Christian Spirituality. He has a special interest in helping form intentional disciples of Jesus, encouraging others to go spiritually deep-sea diving to explore a deeper relationship with God, and walking with people as they dive into the ocean of God’s mystery experiencing God rather than simply dipping one’s toe into the water.]

We encouraged you to read the apostolic letter. You can download a copy for free from the Vatican’s website or buy a copy at your favorite bookstore.

Learn more about “Dilexi Te” (I Have Loved You)

Photo Credit: ID 345998791 | Homeless Jesus © Bumbleedee | Dreamstime.com  Music Credit: “Sail on Stranger” by Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz.

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