Reflect
“Homeless Need Help.” “Homeless Vet. Anything Helps. God Bless.” “Hungry Please Help.” Messages like these are often scrawled across cardboard in permanent marker, held by men and women across the age, race, and cultural spectra. Perhaps they are standing near an exit ramp or outside a convenience store. Perhaps we don’t see them at all sometimes. But God sees them. St. Francis saw the lepers in the valley below Assisi, and came to love them deeply, but it didn’t happen overnight. Like Francis, we can take steps to embrace the “least of these brothers of mine” (Mt 25:40), but also like Francis, it will take some humility and maybe even a little embarrassment and awkwardness along the way.
Pray
God of abundance,
Some of us don’t have to worry about when or where our next meal will be.
But that’s not the case for many in this land of surplus.
We ask you to shine your light of love just a little brighter
on the faces of those struggling with finding housing, food, and safety.
May your love ease their afflictions and guide them to a place of well-being and wholeness.
May your love “infect” our hearts and break down the barriers we put up between ourselves and those who we might prefer to not have to deal with or even see with our
own eyes.
Let us look into the eyes of the other, the sufferer, your son.
Amen.
Act
There are so many ways to help and give back, it’s almost impossible to not find something that works for you. Whether it’s the gift of time, material, or simple acknowledgment of someone as a child of God, the light of goodness is easy to share, but not if your heart is hardened. Before looking into how to help (at a soup kitchen, donating to a charity, participating in a canned-food drive), check your heart. Do you feel drawn to the warmth of compassionate giving? Trust that sense.
