Homelessness: Seminarians stand in solidarity with "friends" living on Rome's streets

Lent is a season of reconciliation, penance and getting closer to Christ as we approach Holy Week and the Cross. Earlier in Lent we visited one of our seminaries in Rome training men for the priesthood in England and Wales. On a cold Tuesday night in the Eternal City, we were able to join some of the seminarians from the Venerable English College on a soup run through the streets organised by the excellent Sant'Egidio community - a lay association of the Catholic Church that has over 60,000 members worldwide and is dedicated to peace, prayer, and service to the poor in more than 70 countries. In this podcast we catch up with Dominic and Martin, two of the seminarians who regularly go on the run. They take soup, bread and fruit to the homeless - or "friends" as they prefer to call them to help break the stigma attached to homelessness. Dominic Jenkinson and Martin Fyles tell us about this important pastoral work and why it's vital to their current and future ministry. But they don't stop thinking about their friends on the streets when they're back at the College tucked up in bed. The following day, a good number of seminarians forgo their regular lunch in the refectory and head to a simple kitchen area where they have a basic meal of soup, bread and fruit - exactly what they handed out the night before. Not only that, they pay for the privilege so they can buy more soup for the following week's run.