Just a few years ago, Kenan MacKenzie served Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside as a paramedic, responding to emergencies amid suffering, addiction and loss. Today, as a permanent deacon, his  vocational journey has come full circle. He walks those same streets carrying not medical equipment but the presence of Christ. In this edited reflection that first ran in The B.C. Catholic, he describes his call to ordained ministry, its deepening of his understanding of service and how it led him to rediscover the Downtown Eastside.

I did not know the gift that awaited me in the diaconate. It is not like a gift you unwrap on Christmas morning that soon passes away. It keeps getting better and keeps growing. It is a gift that we all receive as we grow in faith.

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Throughout four years of study for the diaconate, Scripture came alive for me in a way I had never understood before. The blindness in my eyes began to clear and I could see Love in a way I had never understood before.

As we grow in love for our Lord, our love for the people around us grows as well. Like Zacchaeus, the tax collector in the Gospel of Luke who climbed a tree to see Jesus coming, I began to contemplate the wood of the Cross to gain an understanding of how greatly the Lord loves us that He would allow His only Son to die for me.

Life was busy following ordination, as I was assigned to serve at my home parishes at Holy Family in Sechelt and St. Mary’s in Gibsons. Juggling family responsibilities, parish service, my real estate career and a business interest in the Okanagan with partners required much of my attention.

My family understands that even though they are not directly involved, they are part of the ministry, because without their support I could not do this work. With the help of my daughter who joined me in real estate I was able to free up time from my business and volunteer at The Door Is Open on Thursdays. 

The Door Is Open is a beautiful name for a Catholic charity that serves those in need. I never realized that “The Door Is Open” is meant for me as well. To truly heal the brokenness within us, we must open the door within ourselves so that we can encounter Christ. When we think about another and how we can help them, we begin an action through which Jesus, by His grace, can work.

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As I write this, I am left with a glow of love. Michael told me that he had encountered Jesus recently after a life marked by prison and self-harm. Jesus was with him that day, and he allowed us to experience this special grace. As Michael left in his new shoes, he sang “Amazing Grace” with a lighter step in his stride.

“There, but for the grace of God, go I.” This quote, attributed to John Bradford, a Protestant English martyr, was one I often shared with my partners when I worked as a paramedic in the Downtown Eastside. A friend from The Door is Open recently quoted those same words to me.

Each person in the Downtown Eastside comes from one of our communities. They are someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. None of us wishes to be homeless, but only by the grace of God do we have homes and families. We pray that through our small Christ-like acts of love, our brothers and sisters will once again have a home.

Pope Leo, in his message for the World Day of the Poor in November, said the poor are not a distraction for the Church but are our beloved brothers and sisters. Through their lives, words and wisdom, they place us in contact with the truth of the Gospel.

The celebration of the World Day of the Poor reminds our communities that the poor are at the heart of all pastoral activity. This is true not only of the Church’s charitable work, but also of the message she celebrates and proclaims. God took on their poverty to enrich us through their voices, stories and faces. Every form of poverty, without exception, calls us to live the Gospel concretely and to offer effective signs of hope.

When I first volunteered at The Door Is Open, co-manager Sr. Chita Torres told me, “Many people come down to the Eastside to bring Jesus Christ to the people, and they find Jesus is already here.”

The Door Is Open is a special gift through which we discover Christ in a way the Gospels continually call us to. When we freely give of ourselves, Jesus becomes fully present in that self-giving.

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We are not all called to heroic acts. Sometimes it is as simple as acknowledging those around us with a smile or a greeting. The heroes include those who set up collection boxes in their churches and those who fill them. 

The volunteers and staff at The Door Is Open have a special gift for those they serve. It is the gift of caring — the desire to lift each person they encounter, to bring the tender love Jesus Christ has for each of us and to let them know they are loved.