“The men from the Bowery were there, ragged, dirty, jobless, most of them Longshore workers, teamsters, gandy dancers, sand hogs, restaurant workers, men who had led hard and dangerous lives. There were Irish, Italian, mostly, but other nationalities, too. Poles, Croatians, Hungarians. There were young and old, men and women, single and married.

Tonight and last night I sat next to some of the Bowery men, living on relief in lodging houses or sleeping in doorways. They were as poor, as destitute as ‘down and out’ as man can get. And yet, how close they are to our Lord!

‘He was a man so much like other men that it took the kiss of a Judas to single him out,’ Mauriac wrote.

He was like that man in the pew beside me. He was as like him as his brother. He was his brother. And I felt Christ in that man beside me and loved him.

Every morning I break my fast with the men in the breadline. Some of them speak to me. Many of them do not. But they know me and I know them. And there is a sense of comradeship there. We know each other in the breaking of the bread.”