Benedict Joseph Labre - homeless dude
~~Author: Roger Karny
Benedict Joseph Labre was an unemployed transient who beggared around Europe for some thirteen years. He ate the refuse that other people didn’t want, clothed himself in rags and was infested with vermin; he smelled bad. Yet less than a hundred years after his death in 1783, the Catholic Church canonized him a saint! How and why did this happen? More importantly, what does it tell us about homelessness today and the situation of those who are homeless now?
“The poor you will always have with you,” Christ said. The homeless have existed in America almost since its inception. Tough economic times, like the post-Civil War years and the Great Depression, of course always increase the number of homeless. In those two times, out-of work laborers would hop on freight trains to go other places hoping to find jobs. After World War II, skid row districts often populated by alcoholics and addicts became more prevalent.Some notable Americans who lived part of their lives as itinerants and vagabonds were Joe Hill, Jack London, Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac.
But what about Labre? How did he become homeless? What facts are known about him were written down by his confessor, a priest named Giuseppi Loreto Marconi, in a biography of him a few years after he died, plus testimony gathered for his canonization. According to Marconi, Labre had no addictions, but freely chose his lifestyle.
Why on earth would he do that!? Many doors closed on his life, things he wanted to do didn’t work out. Did he become discouraged, depressed… mentally ill? Did he possibly, therefore, sink into homelessness and poverty the way so many do today? I find it almost inconceivable to think today that someone in their “right mind” would choose homelessness as a pathway to God. But that’s not to say Labre didn’t … or couldn’t.
Most people had their reasons for avoiding Benedict Joseph Labre when he was alive, yet as sooon as he died they called him a saint. Many of us today steer clear of the homeless – but are there some “saints” among them?
Jesus himself had a soft spot for the underdog. He lived as an unemployed transient for the three most significant years of his life… the gospel says he had “no place to lay his head.” He lived off the handouts and generosity of others. But Jesus had twelve close friends to support him and confide in.
When Labre was on the streets of Europe, he had almost no meaningful contact with others besides an occasional priest or confessor, like Marconi. He had little or no communication with his parents then either.
Most homeless today are like Labre in this way. They’re often cast out or shunned by their families, and their street relations tend to be shallow and short-lived. Thieves and parasites abound on the streets; the struggle to survive is paramount. Cold nights and winter bring the threat of sickness and pneumonia; tuberculosis can spread in homeless shelters. Some estimated one-third of the homeless population today is mentally ill. Since a common characteristic of mental illness is a difficulty forming close relationships, these folks can find themselves even more isolated from others.
Agnes De la Gorce, a 1952 Labre biographer, claimed he allowed himself no amusements and was excessively austere even as a youth. After unsuccessful attempts to join the Cistercian and Carthusian orders, he chose the life of a beggar, with its accompanying beatings, robberies, humiliation, mockery, stoning and aversion. He built up a wall of isolation around himself out of shame, she says. When it was suggested to him that he rid himself of the lice on his body, he declined, saying he wanted to mortify himself with their bites.
Was Labre excessive and over-zealous in his commitment? Most popular saints, like Francis of Assisi, were equally radical in their own way. Labre died at the age of 35 due to his harsh, ascetic life on the streets. Many around him thought him deranged. Lacking any psychiatric evaluation and compared to how we view our lives and faith now, we would be tempted to call him that as well. But the Church, through its investigative process of canonization and presumably the leading of the Holy Spirit, named him a saint.
So I think it doesn’t really matter if he was “crazy” or not. In fact, if he was, so much the better, since he would have shown that mental illness is no barrier to sanctity. If Labre could achieve closeness to God through a homeless life, then there is hope for anyone who is homeless to do the same. In fact, all of us find a better hope through him.
Most of us in America “idolize” upward mobility. Labre sought God by choosing the most simple life possible, through downward mobility. De la Gorce in her biography of the saint, quotes Abbot de Rance: “It is not the man who has much who is rich, but the man who wants nothing… renouncing the things of earth.” What better patron saint for the homeless is there than Benedict Joseph Labre?