Pray for Us Ken Jacques
This morning Washington is sadder. It is raining because God is crying. I received through the Holy Trinity listserve notice that our friend Ken Jacques passed on Saturday night.
This cannot go without mention because there are trumpets, trombones, flutes, harps and
seven levels of angelic choirs ushering him into heaven. And you never knew him.
Ken Jacques was a bit of an odd bird to the casual observer. He was not anything much to look at (sort of in the same way they said Jesus wasn't), a guy approaching 60, kind of rumpled, speckled with grey, clothes a bit outdated, like someone who wore the same tweed jacket for thirty years and patched its elbow every ten, alternating with his favorite Mister Rogers style sweater. Once in a while when talking he would throw in a Latin phrase letting his high class private or very catholic education leak in his speech. He was a member of something called the Sera Society which is a Society devoted to supporting and praying for Priests and I saw him at breakfast meetings there at the Washington Hilton. He was a veritable fixture at church and church functions where he always cheerfully helped with whatever needed doing. He was one of those people who was annoyingly at times cheerful, even when life for the rest of us looked wildly out of control. He was a smiling jovial rock. He always had some interesting "remind me to tell you the one about..." story. Just seeing him made you feel grounded.
I met him when he ran the Christmas shelter at Holy Trinity where DC's homeless women with children get to spend a Christmas in a church basement and be showered with the benevolence of the Parish during the season. We cooked dinner for them together in the church basement. He fed every night many families who might have lived by the river on Christmas under a bridge but for this program. I'm not kidding folks. In our nations Capital people sleep under a bridge by the river. He served them like they each were his family- he was no less kind and generous than he would be to his siblings or parents. The food had to be good and we all had to sit and eat with them, hold hands and pray with them, and make it our family dinner table for the nights we served them.
Ken rode the buses around Washington, he didn't have a car or many possessions. Just what he needed. What would he need? He had his own apartment but his real job was to take care of homeless people in shelters. He lived with them in the evenings, made sure the showers worked, they had toothbrushes and slept well. He was the kind face they woke up to each morning.
When I first met him, almost the first day, he confided that he was praying for funds for some sort of Glaucoma surgery, and I prayed with him. I just met him. The thought crossed my mind-hey, I should give this guy funds for his glaucoma surgery, but then thought- I just met this guy! that's crazy, what if he starts to like me.
The next time I saw him, someone else whom he liked gave him money for his glaucoma surgery. Someone else got those wings. I failed that test.
I would see Ken all over Washington over almost a fifteen year period. If you didn't know him he is the kind of guy you wouldn't take much notice of. He made me feel like there was nothing more important in my crazy harried lawyerly Washington way than giving that bottle of water I reserved for the gym to the old homeless crazy lady standing alone in the Washington heat with her shopping cart of black bags full of all her possessions. He made me feel like- hey, that homeless guy over there probably can speak Latin. That homeless lady over there- she might actually have a kid sleeping by the river under a bridge.
The next time someone I just met asks me, or prays with me for money for his glaucoma and I actually have money sitting in a bank somewhere, I am going to give it to him.
I want Ken Jacques to like me.
A Celebration of the Life of Ken Jacques
will take place
at
Holy Trinity Church
Funeral Mass
Thursday Evening
August 9, 2007
7 PM
Reception to follow in Mc Kenna Hall
http://www.hourofpower.org/booklets/bookletdetail.cfm?ArticleID=5506
Luke 16:22 -31
The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, when he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him. Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus (the beggar) to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. but Abraham replied, "Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us." He answered, "Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment." Abraham replied, "They have Moses and the Prophets let them listen to them." "No, father Abraham", he said, "but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent." He said to him "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." [which is, of course, exactly what Jesus Yeshua of Nazareth did]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwaAtVgsl4E
3 comments:
Amen! A wonderful tribute to a wonderful man...who will be missed but those of us still earth-bound. There's a special place for Ken in heaven.
I never met Ken Jacques.
I only knew him through the words of my mother who worked with and around him at Holy Trinity. "A selfless man," she would say of the guy who devoted all of his time, energy and patience to making life for the homeless just a smidge more tolerable. Although I cannot say I have devoted my time here on earth to the same such meaningful causes, I did find myself scooping up whatever hotel amenities I could get my hands on while on vacation. I would send them along with my mother to give to him so that he could pass them out at the shelters. The effects of a man I never met.
One thing I am sure of, Cynthia, Ken Jacques likes you!
I also only knew him from the kind words my mother, who is a former employee of Holy Trinity parish, spoke of him very frequently. He attended my wedding as a friend of my mother's and to witness the wedding of her daughter, me. As I walked down the aisle after my new husband and I said our vows, Ken approached me with a gift. It was a beautiful print of the new name I was taking. He had it made for us. I thanked him and he blessed me and went on his way. That was my only interaction with him and I did not know him otherwise but what my mother spoke of him. At that moment I got to experience his giving nature. God Bless.
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