June Appeal

“All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property 
and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet
together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in the homes and ate together with
glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” -Acts 2:45-47a

Dear Friends,

Since my early teens, I’ve had a fascination with communal living and the countercultural lifestyle. I was definitely too young to be a hippie, but was attracted to its idealism. It would be an understatement to say that Dallas in the 1970s was not a hot bed of the counterculture movement. Maybe this desire came from watching movies such as Easy Rider and the documentary for Woodstock while in high school, and of course, the era’s music.  Whatever the cause, at a young age I started to develop a desire to live an alternative lifestyle which included communal living. “One day I’ll be a hippie living in a commune.”

During college when I delved deeper into my Catholic faith, I came across more examples of countercultural communal living. The Catholic Church has over a 1500-year history of communal living.  In the 520’s BCE St. Benedict established a rule for monasteries which still survives today: a life devoted to God based on a balance of prayer, work, and study (ora et labora), all done in a communal setting.  Monasteries are still active today; a highlight of my year is the silent retreat I do at Redwoods Monastery, a Trappist monastery, in Northern California.  Until recently, parishes had communal living with nuns in convents and priests in rectories. With the decline of traditional vocations beginning in the late 1960s, most parish convents have now been converted to other parish uses and most rectories have only one or two priests in residence.

Motivated by a desire to live a life based on service and community, I served for two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. As Jesuit Volunteers we lived together, espoused voluntary poverty (simple living), shared resources, and had service jobs in the community.  That experience led me, and prepared me, to join the Los Angeles Catholic Worker.  When I joined the Catholic Worker, I felt I had accomplished my goal: “I finally made it! I’m living in my dream commune.” I was totally content living that dream for several years until another dream came true — getting married to a wonderful woman and starting a Catholic Worker house of our own.

After starting Catholic Worker Hospitality House in San Bruno, we initially continued living in community until we had a couple of children and felt the need to have a separate family space away from our work. While I was obviously very content with my family life, a part of me missed and longed for my idealistic commune days. I missed living with a group of people sharing a common work. For close to two decades our Catholic Worker “commune” consisted of me, a couple of co-workers at the Shelter, and some wonderful volunteers, but the grand sense of community was lacking.

Then something started to happen at our Second Ave house. First one staff member started to live there, then another and another and another. Before I knew it more than half the people living there were in some form or another part of the mission of Catholic Worker Hospitality House — either working at the Shelter or the Dining Room, or doing laundry or bi-weekly deep cleaning of the dining room and shelter. One day I realized we had a bit of a Catholic Worker community going on. I started to jokingly refer to the Second Ave. house as “the commune.” My fellow “communards” patronizingly smiled, and said, “Sure, that’s right Peter.”

While I make light of it, something serious was developing — a sense of community and shared work. My co-workers, while not motivated by the commune ideal, do care about those with whom they live.  They are developing friendships and socializing together, and caring for each other in times of need.  Most of them have the means to live elsewhere, but choose to live in that communal setting.  They also care about the work that is happening at the Dining Room and Shelter.  All of them started as guests of the dining room, shelter, or both before living at the Second Ave house.  They know firsthand the needs and feelings of those we serve.  Because of this they have started taking the initiative to improve policies and operations of the dining room and shelter, to spruce it up, and ultimately to make it a nicer place for those we serve.

I have come to realize that my fascination with communes was not some pseudo- hippie pipedream, but a deep desire for  community, for a sense of belonging and a means of living out my faith.  I longed to be part of something that combined a shared work that both makes our community a better place and helps to enflesh the Kingdom of God.  In a world that can be incredibly individualistic and isolating, I think this is what has attracted people to the Catholic Worker Movement for the past ninety-plus years, it is certainly what attracted me and has kept me around for the past thirty-five years.

Ultimately, what we’re trying to do at Catholic Worker Hospitality House is to live out the Kingdom of God here and now through sharing our resources and serving those in need in our community.  Even with the frustrations that come with the work we do, and especially with sharing living space, we are all so thankful for the relationships and meaningful work that come with being part of Catholic Worker Hospitality House.  As always, we thank you for your ongoing generosity, which makes our work and life possible. We hope that you will help us to continue this experiment of living communally and serving those indeed in our community.

In Christ’s Peace,

Peter Stiehler
For all of us at
Catholic Worker Hospitality House

PHONE NUMBER CHANGE! We have a new phone number at CWHH: 650-291-2400