Thread by @DawnofMercy

I shared earlier about Buddy Harrison, my fellow St. Joseph's Capitol Hill (@GoodNewsDC) parishioner. He was an ex-con who found Jesus, became a daily Mass-goer, and spent nearly every day of his life serving Christ's poor until he was gunned down outside his home Sept. 25. 1/x

https://twitter.com/DawnofMercy/status/1576078706388312065

Here's a good obit of Buddy (but it mistakenly says he had pancreatic rather than prostate cancer): eastoftheriverdcnews.com/2022/10/10/in-…
Today I was at his funeral Mass. I've never seen one like it. About 300 folks were there, most of them non-Catholic, many if not most Black or Hispanic. 2/x

The funeral was so inspiring that it moved me to spend hours last night exploring Buddy's social media.

It was an overwhelming experience--reinforcing, 100s of times over, my intuition that the man was a saint.

So, here is a lengthy thread with the best of what I found.

3/x

I discovered Buddy had a friend, William Benitez, who was a gifted amateur filmmaker. He made several short videos on Buddy's good works. This one in particular is outstanding.

I'm not going to spoil it for you. Just watch. Have some tissues handy. 4/x

Many of Benitez's videos show Buddy distributing goods to the unhoused poor in his hometown of DC. I believe that's how he spent his weekends. He maintained a warehouse full of donated items, which he would give out from the back of a pickup truck. 5/x

I really love the videos of Buddy distributing food and gifts on holidays. Here's one of the earliest such clips, from 2013. Many people donated to help Buddy accomplish these giveaways.

Look at the tenderness with which he greets each person. 6/x

Buddy's interaction with the man in the wheelchair in this one made me cry. Every human being was Christ to him. 7/x

During his Christmas 2015 giveaway, Buddy shared how grateful he was to have bounced back after a heart attack. The "Dusty" he mentions is his son, boxing champ Dusty Hernandez-Harrison. 8/x

I also discovered that Buddy had his own YouTube channel. Here you see him in Old School Boxing, the gym he opened for inner-city kids. Police officers could train there for free, giving them an opportunity to build friendships with the youths. 9/x

youtube.com/shorts/X8beXyN…

I love this! The Park Police enter at about 5:55: 10/x

I can't describe how it feels to watch this video. This holy man walked in my parish church, prayed there, knew every corner of it. Although it breaks my heart not to have met him (we attended different Masses), I know his spirit will always be there.
11/x

One day in 2020, Buddy heard shooting. He looked outside and saw a man on the street with a gun in each hand, firing indiscriminately. Watch this video to learn what happened next. What courage and what love Buddy had!

12/x

During the last couple of years of his life, Buddy made more than 1,000 Instagram posts. Going through them impressed upon me how much more I could be doing to evangelize on Twitter rather than spending so much time on politics.

Here Buddy shares about his cancer treatment. 13/x

As owner and operator of Old School Boxing, Buddy was a father figure and role model to hundreds if not thousands of inner-city youths. He was fully aware of the influence his public witness might have upon them, and he used it to share his deep Catholic faith. 14/x

Faith and social justice were not opposed to each other in Buddy's world. Everything flowed from the same love of Jesus and Mary. 15/x

There are many, many posts where Buddy offers free necessities to anyone in need, and many where he offers prayers. I wish I'd known to ask his prayers during his lifetime, but at least I can ask them now, even as I myself pray for his repose (as he would have wanted). 16/x

Buddy, like Archbishop Fulton Sheen and all mystics, believed that God speaks to us through the events of our lives. 17/x

instagram.com/p/CMqZjPoiRB8/

I love the post where he offers to share with other prostate-cancer sufferers what he learned over the course of his thirty-three radiation treatments. 18/x

When Buddy posted about receiving the Muhammad Ali Award, his thoughts were not to congratulate himself but to think about how much more he could be doing to be the person God wanted him to be and to serve the poor better. 19/x

Many of Buddy's posts were on gratitude, many were on purification of memory, and some were on both. 20/x

Buddy was very proud of the food-pantry box he established. You can see it in this video: instagram.com/p/Ce_JXP6ozdy/.

Also, he is the only person I have ever seen who could credibly say, "Happy Good Friday." Like St. Paul in Colossians 1:24, he rejoiced in suffering. 21/x

It pained Buddy and his Vietnamese-American wife Thy to see migrants being dumped by Texas Gov. Rick Scott at Washington's Union Station. He cared for them too and tried to crowdsource food for them. 22/x

Listen to how beautifully Buddy prayed:
instagram.com/p/Ccu62Z1oIwQ/ 23/x

"What if you woke up this morning and only had what you thanked God for yesterday?" I am going to take Buddy's question to prayer. 24/x

instagram.com/p/CbATFWEI9LX/

When Buddy went to distribute food and clothing, he often sought out those who were the most vulnerable and least visible--people living under bridges or inside tunnels. And when he found them, he affirmed their dignity by receiving their hospitality. 25/x
instagram.com/p/CZ7AKmeq---/

Towards the end of his life, Buddy's heart overflowed with joy as he helped his son Dusty revive his boxing career. He saw every good thing as an answer to prayer.
26/x

This was Buddy's last social-media post: "I thank Jesus ...." As Dusty said, he clearly died at peace with God.

But that's not how I want to end this thread.

I want to end this thread with a video Buddy posted four days before he was murdered.

27/x

For years, Buddy had admired his wife's praying the rosary. Shortly before his death, he resolved to learn to pray it.

I know grace is invisible. But if we could see it, I think we would find it on Buddy's face as he contemplated the Passion.

RIP.
instagram.com/p/CixJwWYoFR2/ 28/end

Read Buddy Harrison's amazing story on a single page: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1580091…