Who was our first example of the rich entering the lives of the poor, so that by their poverty we might become rich?

The Apostle Paul has the answer ... "Now as you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also. I say this not by way of command, but to test the genuineness of your love by your concern for others. For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

"And I am giving counsel in this matter, for it is appropriate for you who began not only to act but to act willingly last year: complete it now, so that your eager willingness may be matched by your completion of it out of what you have. For if the eagerness is there, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have; not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality your surplus at the present time should supply their needs, so that their surplus may also supply your needs, that there may be equality. As it is written: 'Whoever had much did not have more, and whoever had little did not have less.'" 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

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Take a Homeless Vacation, Raise lots of $$$ for the Poor, but Beware there will be Critics!

The Village Voice, a popular New York City publication reports that recently 32-year-old business professional Yusef Ramelize has taken a week's vacation from his job as a production coordinator to dabble in homelessness, as part of an effort to raise awareness and money for homeless shelters and food banks. Joining the ranks of the homeless began on a Sunday night, with Ramelize spending the night in the Union Square subway station and taking a short nap in a chair at McDonald's. He was kicked out for sleeping. According to the Village Voice, he's been staying in touch with his non-homeless friends with an iPhone. Friends have been bringing him food at night, though none of the meals are worth more than five dollars. So far he's raised $2,785. But, naturally, Ramelize has his critics. One commenter on the Voice website is quick to find fault: "You've got to realize that him taking up a graciously allowed chair at a 24 hour McDonald's denies that chair to someone in need. Sure, maybe the greater good could be served in the long term, but he could be hurting folks in the present. Did he give his apartment over to a homeless person while it was unoccupied for the week?"

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Grieving is Praying

There are few mourners left in the world. Two weeks ago, a young man, Danny, only twenty-one years old was found dead in an Anaheim hotel room nearly 100 miles from home. We grieve ... A few days ago, Anthony took his life at his home in Mexico. He was twenty-seven years old. We grieve ... Last week, a thirteen-year-old boy passed unexpectedly from what seem to have been successful open heart surgery. He died at home. We grieve ... A few days ago, an elderly doctor in South Carolina ended his life after spending the night at a friend's home who tried to console him. We grieve ... Two years ago, an elderly Los Angeles homeless man we call, "Mountain Man" slipped into eternity, exposed, on the side of a hill, by the train tracks. There was no closure, no Mass, no sending forth - just a date with the coroner. We grieve ...

Grieving is praying …

Look, my soul, at the way one human being tries to inflict as much pain on another as possible; look at these people plotting to bring harm to their fellows; look at these parents molesting their children; look at this landowner exploiting his workers; look at the violated women; the misused men; the abandoned children. Look my soul, at the world; see the concentration camps, the prisons, the nursing homes, the hospitals and hear the cries of the poor. H.N.

Grieving is praying …
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We Hopelessly Hunger

The Son of man has come to seek and save what was lost.

Luke 19:10

All have sinned. All have wandered from any sense of a true spiritual home. Lost, we lack direction, we hopelessly hunger for we know not what. God however is a tireless seeker!

R Lead us home, Lord!

For those who live in alleyways, doorways, under bridges and in the shelter of moonlight and starlights: R

For those living homeless because of disaster or violence, by war and famine: R

For those who have been abandoned physically, emotionally and spiritually by mother, father, home and family: R

For those who have given up their spiritual home - church, community, friends and heritage: R

May the Lord, our Shepherd, lead us to our heavenly home! Amen.

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Home Reversal

We've all heard of the "vanishing home" or the "reverse home mortgage" geared for elderly who wish to take out equity in their home in the form of a bank loan over their retirement years. But how about the "vanishing home" or "reverse home living" for the unrepentant great and the powerful who one day will weep? The psalmist David offers insights...

Fear the Lord, you holy ones,
for nothing is lacking to those who fear Him.
The great grow poor and hungry;
but those who seek the Lord want for no good thing. Psalm 34: 9-11

O Lord, build us all, great and small an eternal home!

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World Hunger: "They riot, they emigrate or they die!"

AP writer Alessandra Rizzo reports that the UN said today that the global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations' estimate.

The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."

Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.

"No part of the world is immune," FAO's Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity."

"A hungry world is a dangerous world," said Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, "Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die. None of these are acceptable options."

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God Loves Sinners and Losers, so What’s the Problem?

“First of all, I must keep in mind the context in which Jesus tells the story of the ‘man who had two sons.” Luke writes: 'Tax collectors and sinners … were all gathering around to listen to him, and the Pharisees and the scribes were complaining saying: This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.' In response, Jesus tells his critics the parables of 'the lost sheep', 'the lost coin' and 'the prodigal son'.

"Jesus wants to make it clear the God of whom he speaks is a God of compassion who joyously welcomes repentant sinners into his house. To associate and eat with people of ill repute, therefore, does not contradict his teaching about God, but does in fact, live out this teaching in every day life. If God forgives the sinners, then certainly those who have faith in God should do the same. If God welcomes sinners home, then certainly those who trust in God should do likewise. If God is compassionate, then certainly those who love God should be compassionate as well. The God whom Jesus announces and in whose name he acts is the God of compassion, the God who offers himself as example and model for all human behavior.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen, Image Books, Doubleday, New York, 1994, pg.124.)

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Compassion Walks the City Streets

Compassion walks the city streets
And listens for certain feet
That seek a home they cannot find
Because the heart that leads is blind.
Compassion holds a steady light
To show the way through the chill of night
And takes the homeless by the hand
To lead them to a warmer land.

Compassion walks where life is hard,
Where eyes are blank and faces marred
By pain to great to understand,
And shoulders those too weak to stand.
Compassion is the Shepherd’s name:
Who from the halls of heaven came
To travel landscapes bare and bleak
For those that only love would seek.

Compassion does not tire or sleep
But walks wherever sufferers weep
Through ages past and still to come,
Until the world is gathered home
To rest at last where Mercy reigns
And heals all ills and stills all pains.
And where Compassion’s walk will cease,
Where God is all, and all is peace. Unknown

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Becoming A Father

Henri Nouwen in his acclaimed book, The Return of the Prodigal Son ponders the questions raised by Jesus in His parable we call "The Prodigal Son." After years of lengthy contemplation of the younger son, the elder son and the original painting by Rembrandt, Nouwen sheds light on its meaning for us today …

“Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.” [God’s compassion is not just for me to feel forgiven] he invites me to become like God and to show the same compassion to others as he is showing to me. If the only meaning of the story [The Prodigal Son] were that people sin, but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sin as a fine occasion for God to show me his forgiveness. [However] there would be no real challenge in such interpretation. I would resign myself to my weaknesses and keep hoping that God would eventually close his eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such … is not the message of the Gospels.

“What I am called to make true is that whether I see myself as the younger or elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir, [Paul says it clearly that if we are children, then we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ]. Indeed, as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father’s place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered me. The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen, Image Books, Doubleday, New York, 1994, pg.123.)

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Build us a Home, O Lord ...

Beginning in the Old Testament’s very first book of the Bible, Genesis, the Holy Scriptures paint us a picture of God as the “Master Designer,” the “Master Architect.” Later, in the first books of the New Testament, Jesus is the Carpenter from Galilee, portrayed as the Builder of our spiritual home. Let us pray to our “Construction Company,” the Three in One …

R Build us a home, O Lord.

You have called us to encourage one another and to build one another up:
– make us skilled laborers and co-builders on your team of workers. R

You have granted us various talents for the upbuilding of your Temple, your body, the Church in love:
– grant that our talents are not selfishly hidden, but shared with the poor in service to all.

You have gone before us to prepare a home for each among many mansions in your Father’s house:
– allow us the grace to despise seeking the things of this life and to press on with faith to our eternal home.

You have given through your Word, a vision of a great city to come:
– bring all who know they are poor in spirit, homeless, lost, abandoned and broken to dwell with you in glory.

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Most Modern-day Christians are Giving from Abundance

By
Fr. Andre Louf

Jesus was elated over the poor widow who offered two copper coins … Why did he rate these gifts so highly? “She from her poverty, put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” It is the same for us: whatever we give of all the things that belong to us [money, time, talent, etc.] … still we are only giving from our abundance. It will always remain hard and even painful for us to give from our poverty. To give everything to Jesus always means to give from our poverty and that is not an easy thing to do. But it is precisely what Jesus expects from us all … To give from our poverty is first to know that we are poor, that we have discovered in ourselves the wound for which no one is responsible but which for ever makes us utterly poor indeed, poor to a degree we would not dare admit it to ourselves … The widow accepts the fact that she just wants to give what she has because Jesus looked at her and accepted her as she was. Happy are those who dare to give from their poverty: in the eyes of Jesus, they have given everything they have.

Fr. Andre Louf is former abbot of the Cistercian monastery in

Mont-des-Cats, France.

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The Gold of Giving

Do good, and evil will not overtake you. Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than wealth with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold. For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life, but those who commit sin and do wrong are their own worst enemies. Tobit 7:7-10

He was the Lord of Heaven and Earth ... He Vanished from My Sight ...

One day, St. Faustina encountered a poor beggar of a young man at the gate of the convent. She had been placed in charge of serving the homeless that occasionally would show up begging for help. She recalls, “This young man, emaciated, barefoot and bareheaded, and with clothes in tatters, was frozen because the day was cold and rainy. He asked for something hot to eat. So I went to the kitchen and found nothing there for the poor. But, after searching around for some time, I succeeded in finding some soup, which I reheated and into which I crumbled some bread, and I gave it to the poor young man, who ate it. As I took the bowl away from him, he gave me to know that he was the Lord of heaven and earth. When I saw Him as He was, He vanished from my sight.”

After vanishing, Jesus made her aware that He was receiving from the poor many blessings for all the good works of mercy she was performing at the gate of the convent. Jesus said to her, “…This is why I came down from My throne – to taste the fruits of your mercy.” The Diary of St. Faustina, Notebook IV, 1312.
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Sometimes at Homeless In America, People Find their Way Home ...

This week we celebrate the heroic virtue of Navy Chaplain Vincent Capodanno. This "Grunt Padre" sacrificed his life attending to the spiritual needs of soldiers on the battlefield. He was a compassionate Marine chaplain that never feared danger. When troops assembled for combat operations, he was with them. When they went in to the heat of battle, he was with them. During the fiercest fighting, all the infantry men would watch over Fr. Capodanno because they knew he would be moving among the men, ministering to those in greatest need, even to the very front line – never concerned with his own safety – concerned only with his men. The men had an unspoken resolve to “watch over our padre.”
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