Edwina Gately`s ministry to women prostitutes, Catholic Digest

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EDWINA GATELY, from an interview by MARYA SMITH
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Fdwina Gately: Called to the Streets . .. . Satt 107
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Did Father Casey Work Miracles?
"Nothing Short of a Miracle"
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Cslledt o the Streels
My role is to show these women,
God wants to love you
An" of the first things I discovLy' ered atage2l as a-missionary
in Africa was that God got there before us. I was disappointed at the
time. I was supposed to be bringing
God to the Africans, but they were
teaching me more about God than I
had ever learned in my big cathedral.
When I first felt a call to work
with prostitutes, my notion of mission continued to be stretched. My
feeling was: I want to help you. But
is "mission" to save someone to be
like me? Or is it to help a person believe, "I am all right"? The Gospels
tell us we're made in God's image.
I began to respond to the broken image of God in each bag lady, wino,
and prostitute.
I walked the streets, went to bars,
and sat in a brothel to talk to the
women.
It
was painful watching
'205 w. Monroe, Chlcago, 111.60606. January, 1988. @1987 by Claretian Publications. Rsprinted wlth
permlssion. Art by Ray Evgnhouse.
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THE CATHOLIC DICEST
women waiting to be picked; but the
Scriptures say, only those who anguish will sing new songs.
In time I realized we had to have
a place where the women could come
and cry, take a shower, share a meal,
a cup of coffee. Genesis House open_
ed in 1984; and we now have a itaff
of eight, plus volunteers. We see 50
women a week. Every morning we
are in two Chicago courtrooms to
talk to the women, offer interven-
tion. We visit women in lock-up. We
have six beds for emergency and
short-term residency. We have weekly support groups as well as indivi-
dual counseling. We develop job
skills, giveAIDS education. Our aim
is to help women get a sense of their
own goodness.
_ W9 live on the edge financially.
But God is a God of back doors. I
learned this in the ,60s when I had
come back to England from Uganda
bursting with a calling to start a lay
mlsslonary movement. I talked to
bishop after bishop and the answer
was no.
- -I
eventually watched the Voluntary
Missionary Movement grow from2.2
missionaries to 500, but after ten
years God said to move on.
When a priest offered me a forma-
tion house in Illinois to start an
American Voluntary Missionary
Movement,
I
brought over two experienced leaders from England. And
I lived in the property's forest as an
ascetic, fasting, reading the Scrip_
tures. Sounds romantic, but I couid
not pray. I didn't have an inkling of
/ APRIL,
1988
grace. Four months later
I was still
stale and feeling silly and useless.
Then in the ninth month, I felt a new
awareness.
.I
could hear God's whisper: go
and find the children. A call io woik
with prostitutes. My reaction was,
what do I know?
So I hit the streets looking for
hookers. The first prostitutes i met
told me to blank off. When I per_
sisted, they asked me, are you a cop,
ajournalist, a nun? I keptlaying no,
no, no. They saw me as harmless be_
cause I was dispossessed. prostitutes
know that feeling and so I was all
right. Again, the people I had come
to save reached out and saved me.
They took me around, helped me
out.
_ The stereotype that society sees is
the tough, hostile hooker. This is
what I experienced initially, too.
When they knew I was all right, they
took off their masks; and I discovered the children God had called me
incest
victims, raped by Daddy or an uncle,
a sex object from an early age. What
to find. Most prostitutes are
that does to a child!
Nearly every woman who comes to
us wuls raped at 6 or 9 and was on
the streets by age 15. Now she's 35,
been into drugs, beaten up, and she
comes to Genesis House. After three
months, she's doing well. She has a
job. Their suddenly she's gone, back
on the streets. The first time it hap_
pened I was very upset. Eventually
the woman came back; we got her
alother job. Then she left again, and
then a third time. I said that,s it.
EDWINA GATELY: CALLED TO THE STREETS
But two other women, ex-Prosti-
giv-e
tutes, found her and said please
Then the whole
alive, forgivcomes
Scripture thing
to keeP jourhave
We
7.
times
ing ?O
with the women. WhY should
ir.iu"otft t chance.
"."vt"g
trust anYbodY?
thev
-- -Alro,
the ieality is that often the
them find just doesn't
we'help
iob
tav well. They do better on the street'
ii *u. hard it frst. Now I'm used
to it. TheY keeP coming back' We're
there even when theY blow it'
The job of Genesis House is to
heal. We walk with each woman as
109
long as necessary' whether she's
*oiking the streets or not. No, I
don't tell the women God loves them'
Bumper stickers tell you Jesus loves
vou. i don't speak to them at the car-
level' MY role is to show
them, God wants to love You' We
Lrr.o..
make coffee together, we laugh, do
our laundry. We have Parties'
The other night at our weeklY suP-
Dort meeting we all had our arms
iound
each other at the end'
It was
holy. How can I exPlain how I love
them? As one of the women said,
ain't never been loved before'"
"I