Watch a brief video about who we are and the community we serve.
We are manna.
MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) is a ministry formed with and for the unhoused community of downtown Boston. Founded in 2010, MANNA has been and continues to be a place where we learn what "community" can be together - a place where all are loved, empowered, and dignified in the fullness of our humanity.
We are not a government agency. We have no requirements for participation. We are not a proselytizing ministry. We open our doors to welcome all to a supportive environment where their needs will be met by trained and supported staff.
Community members celebrating at the Easter Vigil
The Black Seed Writers check out a new issue of the Pilgrim Magazine
Enjoying Monday Lunch together!
Much of our history is rooted at St Paul's Cathedral, where we hold all of our programming. Whether it be singing on the front steps or meditating inside the main sanctuary, MANNA's life as a community is an integral part of the Cathedral community as well as the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
While we are rooted in the Episcopal tradition, we believe that people of "all faiths and no faith" are meant to be a part of beloved community.
Mission
To provide a space for spiritual refuge and flourishing; To build a community of genuine belonging with the unhoused and unstably housed of Boston
Vision
For a world where the humanity of all is valued, the flourishing of every human being is supported, and where mutual love can deepen and grow.
Our Theology
We look for the face of God, whose name is Love, and follow the teachings of Jesus which call us to uphold the inherent belovedness of all we encounter.
Meet the Team
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Christie Towers has had the privilege of accompanying the MANNA community since 2018. She is the Director of the MANNA program and the co-editor of The Pilgrim magazine. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and an MDiv from Boston University.
About her time at MANNA she writes:
“Come to me and I will give you rest”, is something we pray together at every Eucharist, often while folks are snoring gently from the back, evidence that this is a place where we can and do find rest. As I’ve learned in my time here, community is not always a restful place: it requires an openness to the self and to others that stretches our capacities for faith, for courage, for love, for grief, for forgiveness, for reconciliation, and for hope far beyond what we could ever experience all on our own. I am so grateful to this community for all the ways it has challenged me and changed me, and for the rest my spirit has found here.
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Long before I learned about chaplaincy, I encountered Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness, where she writes, "the only solution is love and that love comes with community." It has been a deep joy to be a part of the MANNA community where each day I'm inspired by the lived theology of love, belonging, and accompaniment through everything from the critical to the ordinary moments of life.
As a chaplain with MANNA, I have the privilege of offering spiritual care and accompaniment to the friends who make up the community—tending to the often unseen but deeply felt parts of our humanity: the joys and sorrows, celebrations and griefs, and the big, sometimes unanswerable questions about what our lives mean and where do we go next.
My approach to this work is shaped by lived experience and formal training. I am a Board Certified Chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains and I hold a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. In my spare time, I love spending time outdoors and in the mountains, riding my bike and reading.
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The Pilgrim Editor
(he/him) James Parker is a staff writer at The Atlantic. In 2017-18 he was the Institute of Liberal Arts journalism fellow at Boston College.
Since 2011, Parker has been running the Black Seed Writers Group-a weekly writing workshop for homeless, transitional, and recently housed writers-and editing The Pilgrim, a literary magazine from the homeless community of downtown Boston.
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Timothy works alongside unhoused and unstably housed neighbors to build a community rooted in dignity, mutual support, and shared leadership by cultivating an approach that is shaped by deep listening, spiritual practice, and a commitment to creating spaces where people can show up as they are. He helped launch MANNA’s peer-led recovery support group and continues to support programming that grows directly from the voices and needs of the community.
