"Dialogue around Scripture brings us closer as a community"

​As part of its outreach mission, Canterbury House hosts a weekly Bible Study on Tuesday evenings at 7 PM. They intentionally meet after the Soup Kitchen finishes serving next door to allow those guests to join the group too. About 10-15 people consistent come together for prayer, fellowship, and active discussion.

Walker Nelson, a senior at DePaul University, is a regular member of Bible Study who also volunteers during the Hospitality Hours at Canterbury House for neighbors experiencing homelessness. Walker offered this reflection on his time in the group and how it has affected the way he sees God's love in the world...

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​Walker Nelson

I began attending Bible Study in the beginning of December 2023. It serves as the perfect medium for anyone who is looking to enhance their faith. At Canterbury House, we review and talk about the readings for the upcoming Sunday’s Mass. This gives each of us attendees a way to familiarize ourselves with and to contemplate the word of God outside of the Church setting and prepare ourselves for Mass each Sunday. ​

We talk about our favorite passages, what may have resonated with us, how we can translate those passages into our daily lives, and the ways in which we are struggling or succeeding in doing so. This dialogue around Scripture brings us closer as a community. Through the Word we can see our interconnectedness and through sharing our experiences we can acknowledge our own flaws in the mutual pursuit of growth. 

Additionally, the fact that most of the attendees are experiencing homelessness and precarity enhances all of our understanding of God’s love and our mission as Catholics to love as Jesus did – as widely and often as possible. In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that “Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave.”  And further that, “Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.” 

In a society that is becoming increasingly individualistic and meritocratic and subsequently increasingly ignorant of the dejected, poor, and lonely, coming together to study scripture becomes increasingly important. In reading Scripture and developing our understanding of God's love for us, our capacity to reciprocate that love grows, and we can then live more like how Jesus lived. By very literally giving everyone a seat at the table, we can give those who are dejected, lonely, and poor ‘the look of love which they crave,’ the same way that Jesus did. In that way, the Canterbury House Bible Study not only gives attendees more than just a better understanding of Scripture, but also is an avenue to carry out love for their neighbor in a society where it is difficult to do so.

My favorite memory from Bible Study is from one of our meetings during mid-January. It was brutally cold outside – about -8 degrees, but considering wind chill it felt like about -20. I was dispirited by the short walk I had to make from my apartment to St. Thomas of Canterbury church and frankly debated skipping Bible Study altogether in aversion of the cold. When I got there, I was taken aback by the warm attitudes everyone was displaying. There was a supreme sense of appreciation in the room. Despite a brutally cold day, everyone found solace in our hour and a half together spent inside as a community. I remember looking around the table and seeing such beauty in the gratitude everyone placed in each other’s company, in being inside just for a short time, and in having an escape from the cold outside world. I felt so thankful not only that I was able to be a part of the Bible Study and the mutual pursuit of knowledge, but also of everything I take for granted: my apartment, my job, my able body, etc. That cold day in January helped open my eyes to the importance of community, and how something as small as an hour and a half together each week can make a big difference in someone's life, especially people who have less than myself.

After five months, I can attest to the power of this Bible Study. I believe that my ability to see all people as Jesus did, as beings of incomprehensible beauty and worthiness of love, has been enhanced significantly by attending. When I take the “L” to work or school and I see people that society has cast out, I feel a personal obligation to love them as Jesus did. Since I too, with all my flaws and wrongdoings, am loved by God. Without the Bible Study I can’t say whether or not I would have developed this way of seeing and understanding God’s love for myself and my obligation to reciprocate that love.