Jim Eder (1940-2023): Conjurer of Community

This is Jim Eder, a remarkable man. Among other things, he was a Chicago school teacher who ran a soup kitchen in his spare time. He sponsored me when I joined the Catholic Church, and he became a mentor, a role model, and my dear friend. 

Last week, Jim passed away after suffering a stroke, and today his family and friends came together at St. Lambert’s Parish in Skokie for his funeral. Before the Mass began, I was privileged to deliver this eulogy. If you knew Jim, I hope you find that it captures something of his spirit. If you didn’t know him, maybe it’ll spark your interest, in which case I’d suggest you go help out at Soup Kitchen sometime. It’s still going on, every Tuesday and Friday night. Jim himself won’t be there, of course, but you’ll encounter his legacy in everyone you meet. 

Who knows? You might even become part of that legacy yourself.
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When I landed in Uptown in 1984, I had one goal: To find out about the Catholic Worker. I’d read Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness, and I was determined to find out about this movement of people that took the Gospel so seriously. Houses of hospitality and soup kitchens, peacemaking and farming communes, all wrapped up with priests and Mass and saints and Rosaries. The Catholic stuff weirded me out, frankly (I grew up Evangelical), but the Worker stuff appealed to my twenty-something radicalism, so I started hanging around St. Francis House.

It wasn’t long before I discovered the Soup Kitchen up the street at St. Thomas of Canterbury, and that’s where I got to know Jim Eder. “I’m new – what can I do?” I asked him on my first day. “Here,” he said, handing me a mop, “go clean the men’s bathroom.” It was a practical step, concrete, and so welcome – I was part of the team, just like that!

Later, there was always Evening Prayer and pizza and beer. Sometimes music; always story-telling (and the stories never got old, no matter how many times you heard them, due in part, perhaps, to slight alterations of details with each retelling). And then there was the laughter – lots of laughter. The transition from mopping floors, wiping tables, and scrubbing pots to singing and joking and feasting seemed so natural, so…normal!

It was all an eye-opener, a shocker, an epiphany, really. It was my initiation into the Soup Kitchen magic, largely conjured by Jim – how’d he do it? Total strangers from all walks of life coming together to serve a free meal to those in need, but then receiving something else totally unexpected, something so lavish, so extravagant – authentic community.

Dorothy Day wrote that “Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.” That’s a good description of Soup Kitchen, a banquet on many levels – literally for the guests, hundreds of guests, who showed up every Tuesday and Friday, and a banquet for the volunteers as well, with post-Soup feasting and drinking on a regular basis, to be sure, but also a more profound banquet of camaraderie and joy.

And that camaraderie and joy? It was for everyone – everyone, everyone, without exception. Everyone was made to feel welcome and a part of things, integrated into the web of the Soup Kitchen society, just by showing up and pitching in. I experienced it; I know many of you experienced it, too. And it was largely because of Jim Eder. He had an uncanny knack – a gift, a super power, if you will – for reeling in outsiders and giving them purpose, giving them a sense of belonging and place.

What’s more, once you’d been reeled in yourself, you were inspired to do the same for others. You kept your eye out for newbies or those on the fringe, and then brought them into the thick of it all. In essence, you became an extension of Eder’s irrepressible hospitality; which was itself an extension of the hospitality of Christ. Soup Kitchen under Eder’s “temporary” direction – a temporary leadership role that lasted over 40 years – was the embodiment of Peter Maurin’s vision of a world “where it is easier for people to be good.”

Now, let me hasten to add (lest Eder in his otherworldly perch should scowl and scold), that our dear departed friend was no saint. He wasn’t perfect, of course, but he managed his imperfections in a way that I and so, so many others admired and learned from. He wasn’t a saint, but he damn sure wanted to be one, and he worked at it. Every day.

And that’s why I asked him to be my sponsor when I became a Catholic – to be my “godfather,” as I called him. Why wouldn’t I? He was Catholic, through and through; he poured out his life for others through service and sacrifice; he prayed regularly, got to Mass every day, and frequented the confessional. Yet he did it all with good humor, generosity, and just regular humanness. Eder was an ordinary guy with ordinary strengths and weaknesses who, with God’s grace, did extraordinary things – he lived an extraordinary life.

Early on – after meeting him, getting to know him, living with him – I determined to become like him. So, like I said, I asked him to be my sponsor, and, as my sponsor, he not only shepherded me into the Catholic Church, he demonstrated every day what it means to be a Catholic – or, to be precise, he demonstrated every day what it can mean to be a Catholic. That’s what I wanted: To be a Catholic like Eder was a Catholic, and I’ve been working at it ever since.

Although my time in Uptown ended after only a few short years, it was instrumental in shaping my worldview, personality, and character. The Worker, Soup, St. Thomas, the whole Kenmore “do-gooders ghetto” phenomenon was a crucible for so many of us, making us who we are, and Eder was at the center of it all for many of us – me included, obviously.

Even after I left Uptown, Jim and I stayed connected, albeit remotely – going on 30-odd years now. I’d visit him in Chicago; he’d come down to visit us in South Bend; often I’d meet him halfway at an Irish pub in Michigan City. He stood with me at my wedding; he actually became a literal godfather for my son, Crispin; and, for me, he became like a second dad.

Jim challenged me and encouraged me; held me accountable when I was screwing up; counseled me when I was losing my way. We’ve laughed much together, cried together, and bitched about this and that together. It seems like my entire adult life, I’ve been striving to emulate Jim in so many ways – in faith and devotion, in courage and prudence, in friendship and loyalty, and certainly in mirth. You could say we’ve been growing older together intermittently for decades. Only he had a couple decades head start on me, so we both knew that he’d likely be making his exit before me.

Yeah, I knew that, but I still couldn’t believe it when I got the word from Fr. Simon that Jim had suffered a major stroke – that he was unresponsive and unlikely to survive for long. Jim? Jim Eder? Dying? It couldn’t be. What will the world be like without Jim Eder in it? Oh my God, a much poorer world, at the very least, poorer and more melancholy, bereft of a major tributary of charity and good cheer.

Last Saturday, I got up to Evanston to visit Jim in the hospital – to tell him I loved him, to thank him for saving my life, shaping my life, enriching my life. When I got there, I was greeted by Don and Dorsey, Jim’s good, good friends; and there was Paul Shaheen and Alban, good, good friends from an even earlier vintage.

And then there was a fifth person, a young woman I didn’t recognize – Dani, I was told, a relatively recent addition to the Soup Kitchen community. Immediately, I felt a bond with her – and I knew nothing about her other than her first name, that she was a volunteer at Soup, and that she loved Eder enough to visit his deathbed. Then I saw her well up with tears as she got ready to leave, as she bade Jim farewell, as she thanked him profusely for his impact on her life. “Amazing, amazing,” I thought to myself. “Here is a sister, a comrade, a friend – and all because of our common connection with this dying man.”

Amazing, right? Even on his deathbed, he was bringing people together. Today we gather again, once again, because of Jim. We’ll grieve him; we’ll pray for him; we’ll bury him. We’ll commend his soul to God. But we won’t be done with him, for his manner of bringing people together and conjuring community, of eliciting smiles and joviality in the unlikeliest circumstances, of pursuing holiness as if it was the most normal thing in the world – his manner is now our manner.

No matter our state of life, no matter our profession, no matter our age, we can take a cue from Jim and work to create spaces in the world – little corners in the world here and there – “where it is easier for people to be good.” And the world will be all the better for it. And so will we. Thanks, Jim Eder, thanks. Thanks for everything.
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Father Stu: The Language of Love

“To boast in the Cross is an almost fierce gesture
when we confront all that would defeat us.”
~ Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR

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Sola Which Scriptura?

“On what ground do we receive the Canon as it comes to us but on the authority of the Church?”
~ Bl. John Henry Newman

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An Embarrassment of ‘Riches’

“The patron saint provides a model of charity;
we are assured of his intercession” (CCC 2156).

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John XXI and the True Gift of the Papacy

“When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man.”
~ G.K. Chesterton

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Why I’m Catholic: It’s Home

The whole flailing, disastrous mess — all true, all somehow in accord with what is, and, despite itself, ably engaged in bringing our distorted grasp of things in line with that reality.

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Monikers Matter: St. Pacian of Barcelona (c. 310-390)

“With nothing to consider they forget my name.”
~ The Ting Tings

In today’s Gospel, Luke narrates his version of a familiar story. “Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him” (Lk 5.27-28). Mark’s version is essentially the same as Luke’s, and yet when we hear or read either one, we automatically substitute the name “Matthew” for “Levi” – which is what St. Matthew did in his telling of this watershed moment.

Some Bible scholars speculate that the Levi version is original, and that the author of the first Gospel substituted Matthew’s name to bestow an apostolic lineage on this sinner so singled out by the Lord. But tradition holds otherwise, and I like John Delaney’s summation on the discrepancy. “Called Levi (though this may have been merely a tribal designation – that is, Matthew the Levite),” Delaney writes in his Dictionary of Saints, “he was…a publican tax collector at Carpharnaum when Christ called him to follow him, and he became one of the twelve apostles.”

In other words, Matthew was the official’s name, but Levi marked out his heritage and family – what we might call first name and surname today.

There’s a parallel in how we identify ourselves as followers of Jesus. When asked our religion, we’ll typically refer to ourselves as “Roman Catholics” or just “Catholics,” but, if pressed, especially in conversations with evangelicals or fundamentalists, we might go on to specify that we’re Catholic Christians – that is, while we’re named “Catholic,” our religious family is already (for the information of those intent on proselytizing us) “Christian.”

St. Pacian of Barcelona would demur.

A 4^th-century bishop and church father whose virtues were noted by none other than St. Jerome, Pacian was a strong advocate for Christian unity and papal authority. In particular, as his few extant writings demonstrate, he was an ardent opponent of the Novatian heresy which stipulated that lapsed believers could never be reconciled with the Church. Pacian sided with Pope Cornelius who maintained that contrite apostates could be readmitted to full communion after a period of penance.

Pacian is most famous for a single Latin epigram that appears in one of his letters to a Novatian schismatic:

And yet, my brother, be not troubled; Christian is my name, but Catholic my surname [Christianus mihi nomen est, catholicus vero cognomen]. The former gives me a name, the latter distinguishes me. By the one I am approved; by the other I am but marked.

Here, the good bishop draws a line in the sand: Anybody can call himself a Christian – it is, after all, just a nickname, a label, a tag – but only Catholics can lay claim to a direct association with the Church established by Christ. “In her subsists the fullness of Christ’s body united with its head,” the Catechism states. “The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be so until the day of the Parousia” (CCC 830).

This was true in the early church as well. At first, those who accepted the Gospel were simply referred to as “disciples” of Jesus or followers of The Way. Yet we know from St. Paul that there were divisions even among these original believers. Here’s what he wrote to the Corinthians:

It has been reported to me by Chlo′e’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apol′los,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Paul’s insistence that there can’t be parties within the church echoes Jesus’ prayer, on the eve of his crucifixion, that all his disciples remain united. “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word,” he prayed, “that they may all be one…so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (Jn 17.20-21).

Of course, the label “Christian” does have an ancient provenance and a legitimate biblical pedigree. Luke testifies in Acts that the term was applied to the disciples in the city of Antioch around the same time that Paul himself was ministering there. Even so, the tendency of the church to fragment was apparently tough to contain, and each of those fragments, no matter how heterodox or schismatic, stuck to the Christian appellation like glue.

So it was that the church of authentic apostolic origins adopted the name “catholic” to differentiate herself from imposters and interlopers. “Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather,” writes St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans around the year 107, “just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” It’s the earliest recorded application of the word to the corporate body of Christ-followers, and the fact that Ignatius (himself from Antioch) assumes his readers know it indicates that it had already been long in use.

But why “catholic?” The word means “universal” in Greek, and so it squared with the early explosive spread of the true Gospel of Jesus throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond, despite the deviations of false gospel campaigners. But there’s more. “The term was already understood even then to be an especially fitting name because the Catholic Church was for everyone,” writes Kenneth Whitehead, “not just for adepts, enthusiasts or the specially initiated who might have been attracted to her.”

Nor just for saints, either. That’s the beauty of St. Pacian’s battle against Novatianism: the good bishop was committed to preserving the Catholic Church’s catholicity by welcoming back repentant infidels, schismatics, and sell-outs, no question. That’s in line with the latter part of today’s Gospel – the part where Jesus dresses down the Pharisees and scribes who’d been murmuring about the rabbi’s hobnobbing with miscreants. “Jesus said to them in reply, ‘Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners’” (Lk 5.31-32).

Today (March 9) is St. Pacian’s feast. Take the opportunity to reflect on your faith names and their implications, give thanks to God that you’re part of the Catholic clan – sinners and saints alike – and resolve to spend your Lent responding to the Physician’s invitation to healing and wholeness.

St. Pacian, pray for us!
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A version of this reflection appeared on Catholic Exchange.

Of Godchildren, Detox, and RCIA

“Three times a week Sister Aloysia came to give me a catechism lesson….”
~ Dorothy Day

My students were finding their seats, pulling notebooks out of bags, silencing their phones (praise God!). One of them, Michaela, had recently started a regular babysitting gig for a former student of mine and her young family – a young family that happens to include my godson, Dominic.

“How’s my godson doing?” I asked Mic. “Didn’t you sit for him last night?”

“Yes,” she replied. “He’s doing fine – he’s so cute!” I smiled – no argument there.

Next to Michaela sat Kat, another of my med-surg students, who piped up, “How many godchildren do you have anyway?”

I teach at an Evangelical college, so few of my students are practicing Catholics, and I’ll generally jump on opportunities like this one to do some simple catechesis. Besides, my students are accustomed to my answering straightforward questions with anecdotes and long digressions, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said. “A friend of mine in Chicago, the man I call my godfather, used to tell me that he couldn’t remember all the godchildren he had.” It’s true. Jim, longtime resident of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood and a legendary pillar of the do-gooder community there, has served as godfather for countless babies over the decades – including one of my own. “I always thought it was scandalous,” I told Kat and Mic, “because baptism and godparenting duties are so sacred and important. I used to think that I’d never forget my spiritual children should I ever have the privilege of becoming a godfather.” They nodded their understanding, and I continued.

“After I became a Catholic myself, I got my chance,” I said, “and I’ve gotten my chance again and again. Now I can’t remember the exact number any more, although I do pray for my godchildren collectively every day – sometimes by name if God brings them to mind.” I added that I’m certain my godfather does the same, and, by way of catechetical clarification, I added, “Jim’s not really my godfather by the way – I was already baptized when I became a Catholic. Really he was my sponsor when I joined the Church, but I just call him my godfather.”

“Sponsor?” Kat asked, raising an eyebrow. “You mean like AA?”

There was a weighty pause as I considered her comparison – one I’d never considered before. “Well, yes,” I finally agreed, “yes, a lot like Alcoholics Anonymous!”

I think Kat’s onto something there.

Consider: Without grace, we’re addicted to sin, aren’t we? We develop dependencies on our self-destructive behaviors, and we come to crave the evils that keep us separated from God. In fact, we routinely refer to “habits” of vice, just as we refer to “habits” of virtue – perfidy and purification as moral extensions, in opposite directions, of our human reliance on rote action.

Baptism is the drunk tank of our withdrawal from sin. It’s an ecclesial intervention to disrupt the downward slope of our unregenerate routines – a sacramental wake-up call, a liturgical splash of cold water in the face. When we receive baptism as adults (or seek full communion with the Church via the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), we’re in effect embracing the first step of AA’s famous 12-step program of recovery: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (read: sin) – that our lives had become unmanageable.” Simultaneously, we’re also ticking off our acquiescence to the next two steps as well – namely, that we believe that a “Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” and that we’re turning “our will and our lives over to the care of God.”

The overlap between Catholic conversion and Alcoholics Anonymous is all the more illuminating if you take the full communion route, for while non-Christians will require baptism when they join the Church, those who were baptized previously need only make a profession of faith and make a good first confession. With that in mind, get a load of the next four AA steps:

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Sound familiar? Whether you stumbled through it as a second-grader, or sweated through it as a grown-up, you’ll remember all those elements in your own first confession.

Then there’s the last two AA steps which constitute the essence of Christian praxis – communion and witness – regardless of when we’re initiated. Step #11 starts off, “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God,” and step #12 follows with a restatement of the Great Commission: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics (read: other sin-addicts) and to practice these principles in all our affairs” – that is, get out there and preach, but be sure to practice what you preach.

I know a little about this stuff because my dad was an alcoholic and he was an AA meeting regular – at least when he was sober. In fact, I seem to recall going to a meeting with him once as a teenager, but that might be wishful thinking on my part. In any case, I definitely grew up yearning for his sobriety constantly, and I came to associate his teetotalling lulls with his participation in AA programs.

And I remember he always had a sponsor.

“How does sponsorship help the newcomer?” reads an AA pamphlet. “It assures the newcomer that there is at least one person who understands the situation fully and cares – one person to turn to without embarrassment when doubts, questions, or problems linked to alcoholism arise.” For one thing, the AA sponsor is a recovering alcoholic himself – he’s been there; indeed, he is there. The sober sponsor can truly empathize with the fellow addict at the very cusp of recovery. But, even more important, the sponsor will be there long after sobriety is reached, because it’s a “continuing responsibility for helping a newcomer adjust to a way of life….”

Precisely. The same goes for the RCIA sponsor – at least, the same goes for Jim.

“The candidate should be accompanied by a sponsor,” reads the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. “If someone has had the principal part in guiding or preparing the candidate, he or she should be the sponsor” (#396). And what’s the sponsor supposed to do? The RCIA gives us a clue in paragraph #75.2: Prospective Catholics “become familiar with the Christian way of life and are helped by the example and support of sponsors….”

Jim was there for me when I had doubts, questions, and problems as I considered the outrageous claims of the Church. He was that one person I could rely on to shepherd me through controversy and qualm, and to assure me that my stumbles and scruples were not exceptional – he’d been through it all himself.

He’s continued to be there for me after 30 years. Thanks, Jim. I can only hope and pray I’ll be the same kind of sponsor/godfather for Dominic – your spiritual God-grandson.
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A version of this essay appeared on Catholic Exchange.

The Abbess and the Oblate: A Father’s Funeral Remembered

“Life is the thing to worry about, if anything is, not death.”
~ Dom Hubert Van Zeller, OSB

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Christmas Movies for Annunciation Day

Lent is a favourable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may become more like him. This happens whenever we hear the word of God and receive the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

There we become what we receive: the Body of Christ.

~ Pope Francis

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