Dear All,
Today is a world-wide day of prayer for those who are poor. Our reflections are on that theme. Our thoughts obviously go first to those who are materially poor but there are so many other types of poverty – it can be an educational poverty, a spiritual poverty, the poverty of loneliness – and so many other ‘poverties’. And poverty is relative as well. We can look at poverty in the favellas of Brazil, poverty that Mother Teresa tells us about in Calcutta, but there is also dire poverty in parts of the UK & in the US.
One of the reflections that I have found very worthy of time & thought – ‘A Slum is where someone else lives’. I haven’t in any way exhausted its meaning and I find it very challenging. Any thoughts anyone else has would be interesting.
Today we will have the blessing, ‘Repose Blessing’, from the New Dawn CD. We will pray it for all of you as well as asking that our ‘poor’ living around any of us may be blessed.
With our love
A Slum is where someone else lives …………
A slum is where someone else lives,
Help is what others need.
We all want to be the priest, social worker, nurse
The nun in the white habit giving out the soup –
To work from a position of power,
The power being
That we are not the shuffler in the queue
Holding out his bowl.
But there is only one way into the kingdom
- To be found out in our poverty.
That is why the citizens are a job lot –
Unhappily married, the feckless mother of eight,
The harlot no longer young,
The lover of little girls, the sexually untameable,
The alcoholic, the violent, and those whose drink is despair.
Show me not, Lord, your rich men
With their proud boasts of poverty and celibacy
They are too much for me.
Hide me from those who want to help
And still have strength to do so.
Only those who get on with their lives
And think they have nothing to give
Are any use to me.
Let your bankrupts feed me.
Monica Furlong
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.
A Prayer for an End to Poverty
Linda Jones. CAFOD
Christ our Lord,
your light shines into the shadows,
and shows us
where the obstacles to change lie.
We know that often
they are in our own hearts,
in the way we live,
and in our daily choices and actions.
We pray that we may accept
the light of your love
as a challenge to change ourselves
and our world.
We pray that, each day,
we make the choices
and take the actions
that will bring an end to poverty
and hunger
and lead us all
towards a fairer world.
Be with us, Lord
as we face your challenge
and learn how to live
our lives in love.
Give Us This Day
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