“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:12-14
Our Mission
To serve our guests, working to meet their material and spiritual needs as an expression of our love of God and neighbor.
What We Do
Every Monday we welcome 50 to 60 guests from the Cathedral neighborhood who are homeless or otherwise in need. We serve breakfast and provide toiletries, bagged lunches, new socks and underwear. Following breakfast we join our guests in discussing the week’s Gospel reading. Respect is the foundation of all we do.
How You Can Help
What: You serve guests, make bagged lunches at home and deliver them to the Cathedral, contribute food, funds or pick up donations.
Where: The West Conference Room, enter the door down the steps on the Cathedral’s west side.
When: Monday volunteers arrive to set up at 7:30 am, serve guests at 8 and conclude about 9:30. You arrive and leave whenever you choose. We need the most help between 7:30 and 9. Come weekly, biweekly, monthly or whenever you are able. Volunteers drop off breakfast food by 8 am on Monday and deliver bagged lunches by 9. Breakfast food donors commit to a set schedule, lunch makers usually commit to deliver 15 lunches once a month.
Why We Do This Serving our guests offers us a way to live the Gospel. “... for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me ...Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:34. According to Catholic Social Teaching, helping those in need is not only a question of charity, but a matter of justice. “Distributive justice requires that the allocation of income, wealth, and power in society be evaluated in light of its effects on persons whose basic material needs are unmet.” Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, No. 70, page 36.
Volunteers feel they receive more than they give and say:
“I come every Monday because our guests feed my soul with food I cannot find anywhere else.” “Our guests inspire my heart with their dignity, appreciation, and smiles.”
Guests have told us that: “We are treated with respect here and you listen to what we say. Everyone respects one another … that is why we like to come. The atmosphere is different here.”
One guest says it best:
“For me, the Kingdom of God is what happens here every Monday Morning.”
How to Contact Us
To volunteer or to visit us, contact Jim Walsh at stmattshm@gmail.com or Norma at Canedo@stmattewscathedral.org. For additional information on this Ministry please contact the:
Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle
1725 Rhode Island Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: +1-202-347-3215
Fax: +1-202-347-7184
