Most weekday mornings at St. Joseph House in Lower Manhattan, Bud Courtney tries to greet the people in the soup line by name. 

“I try to learn everyone’s name,” said Courtney, who coordinates the Catholic Worker house of hospitality. “It’s a lot easier to say, hey, Patrick, come on in, and then put a bowl of soup down, and say good morning.” 

St. Joseph House, at 36 E. First St., has fed hungry New Yorkers since 1968. Today it serves about 150 people per day when its soup line is open. Courtney has spent 19 years there, first as a volunteer and later as a live-in member of the community, and he noticed early on that something was missing. 

“I realized shortly after I started volunteering here, before I moved in, I realized there wasn’t enough interaction between us and [the guests],” he said. 

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Many guests have been coming for years and know Courtney and the house’s handful of other live-in volunteers well. For people with nowhere else to go, the house is a place to come back to and a group they can call friends. 

Some of them have been coming longer than he has. 

“There are people who come here that were here before me, which is kind of heartbreaking,” Courtney said. “They come here because it’s safe because, you know, we do try to treat people like human beings.” 

A lesson from a walker 

A couple of years ago, a serious back injury forced Courtney to step away from the heavy physical work of running the house. He called it “God’s way of telling [him] to take a break.” He had been thinking about retiring. 

After about a month, he could get around with a walker and make it downstairs for lunch with the community. One day he arrived as the soup line was ending. 

“At least 10 guys came up to me as they were leaving, and they said, where have you been? Are you okay?” he said. “And we talked and I was like, I needed this.” 

He began coming down earlier each day, sitting in the back and talking with guests as they came in. 

“I realized this is hospitality,” he said. “Anyone can throw soup down, but to have actual conversations with people. It makes a difference… I’ve been so blessed with the people I’ve met.” 

Finding a parish 

Courtney has always considered himself a Catholic Worker, although he has struggled with his faith at times. He found a spiritual home at St. Francis Xavier Church on West 16th Street after hearing a petition during the prayers of the faithful for the eradication of nuclear weapons. 

“I said, I think I just found my church,” he said. 

He learned that the celebrant, Fr. Tom Feely, wrote the intentions himself, and introduced himself after Mass. 

“That was the only time I’ve ever heard ‘eradication of nuclear weapons’ at a Catholic Mass besides when it was done in my kitchen at the Catholic Worker, usually by Dan Berrigan,” Courtney said, referring to the late Jesuit peace activist. “So, I’m in, and that was it.” 

Fr. Feely’s ministry has since taken him to Massachusetts, but the two remain in touch. 

READ: NY Catholic Worker Movement Speaks Out Against the Continuing Violence of War 

‘Come and see’ 

Asked how people can volunteer, Courtney borrowed a phrase from St. Teresa of Calcutta, who quoted John 1:39: “Come and see.” 

The soup line is open Monday through Friday, 8:45 to 11 a.m. The house also runs a shower van with the nearby Manhattan Seventh-day Adventist Church on the first Saturday of each month, April through December, from 1 to 3 p.m. 

Courtney said whole families show up to help, from mothers with babies strapped to their chests, to students from local Catholic schools, to people who grew up volunteering there with their parents. 

The babies, he said, help in their own way. 

“Guests are always on their best behavior when a baby is around.”