Dear All,
This coming Sunday is a World Day of Prayer for the Poor. Of course we have in mind the poorest & most destitute people far away and also close to us. But we can also be mindful of the poverty experienced in affluent cultures: a spiritual poverty perhaps but also loneliness, bitterness, estrangement from those they love. In our prayer let us include all forms of poverty.
Our blessing will be another of John Rutter’s, the ‘Clare Blessing’. Let’s share it with anyone who is experiencing poverty in any form at this time.
Continuing to pray for you all, & with our love
For an End to Poverty
The sun rises & we wake from sleep. Heighten our awareness of the poor & homeless in our midst, their silent needs, like the voice of Christ, asking us to clothe & feed them.
O God, you are the defender of the poor
and the stronghold of the orphaned & the widowed.
When your people were robbed of their homes
and put in chains,
you did not abandon them
but made of them a special people.
From the remnants of their lives
you fashioned them into a garment of joy.
In the fullness of time, you sent Christ
who announced the Good News of salvation to the poor,
the day of liberty for those in need.
In these days, the nightmare of poverty
haunts our world & enters our homes.
Standing in lines, deprived of human dignity
the poor of our world beg for our love
and ask for food & work.
O God, shine your spirit of courage & compassion upon us.
Warm the cold of our hearts & wills.
Help us to help your beloved poor.
Help us to see that in loving & tending to others’ needs
we are tending the presence of Christ among us.
AMEN.
Give Us
by James Mulholland
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had enough to eat? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had clean water to drink? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had a roof over their head? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had adequate health care? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christians realized this doesn’t require God’s supernatural intervention? It only requires a miracle. It requires you and me to take seriously the words, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Until we eliminate poverty, everything else we do is a mockery of God’s will.
We must understand what Jesus was teaching Peter when he asked him three times, “Do you love me?” We cannot proclaim the love of God if we refuse to feed his lambs. Our theological orthodoxy is meaningfulness if we don’t take care of his sheep. The buildings and budgets of our religious institutions are an abomination if we don’t feed his sheep. We cannot pray, “Forgive us our sins” with sincerity if we continue to allow children to starve to death. There is no sin greater than allowing some of our brothers or sisters to die when we have the capacity to save them.
~James Mulholland, from Praying Like Jesus: The Lord’s Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity (Harper SanFrancisco, 2001)
Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote:
You in the west have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have physically poor people. Very often amongst the rich there are very very spiritually poor people. I find it not difficult to give a plate of rice to a hungry person, to furnish a bed to a person who has no bed, but to console or to remove that bitterness, that anger, to remove that loneliness of so many in the west takes a very long time.
Pope Leo’s message for the 9th World Day of the Poor emphasizes the theme ‘You are my hope’. He calls on all Christians to recognize the poor not as mere recipients of charity but as active agents of hope. The pope’s message is a call to action, urging the Church and global society to address the systematic causes of poverty and to implement new initiatives to support and uplift the most destitute. The message is a reflection on the deep hope that the poor embody in the midst of uncertainty, poverty, & marginalization, and it serves as a reminder that hope in God never disappoints.