THOUGHTS FROM THE PASTOR

It seems that so many hours when Congress is in session in Washington, our elected officials are fighting over priorities as they relate to the federal budget that so little actually gets done in the realm of real legislation for the common good. And now that we are in the thick of another election year, these same priorities and values will be talked about and debated on the election trail. It is my hope—and I suspect yours—that all this does not come down to focusing on just a few key items but rather on a more comprehensive vision for the future: that of the United States and our place in the international community.

Along these lines I was fascinated recently to read the 2012 Hunger Report. What does it tell us? Seven billion people currently inhabit the earth, and the population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. Food production must increase as climate change puts additional stress on natural resources. Nearly 1 billion people around the world suffer from hunger. In the United States, one in four people participates in a federal nutrition program. U.S. food and farm policies absolutely need to be aligned.

Farm policies should significantly increase production of healthy foods. But farm policies alone cannot automatically improve access to nutritious foods for low-income families. Strengthening the nutrition safety net is also critical. Nutrition programs need to do more than provide food for hungry people; they must ensure that healthy food is available to all.

Congress is negotiating dramatic cuts in the federal budget. Cuts to programs designed to overcome the effects of poverty are in neither the short- nor the long-term interests of our nation. People may disagree about what items in the budget are necessary for the public good, but we take for granted that it is in everyone’s interest for the government to fight hunger. In fact, there should be zero tolerance for hunger; no matter what the size, ideology, or other responsibilities of the government may be, it must do what is necessary to keep people from going hungry.

Preventing people in the United States from going hungry is the single most important objective of federal nutrition programs. In times of high unemployment and reduced incomes, government spending on nutrition programs increases to help people cope with these difficult economic conditions. In the past three years, since the country plunged into a severe recession, participation in nutrition programs has skyrocketed. The programs are doing precisely what they are designed to do: counteract the impact of the recession on families and help prevent the recession from getting worse. Once the economy begins growing again at a steady and sustainable rate, the number of people eligible for nutrition programs will be closer to what it usually is.

Federal nutrition programs go a long way toward reducing hunger, but they accomplish much less by way of ensuring a healthy, well-balanced diet. This is especially troubling since more than half of all participants in nutrition programs are children. Dietary habits form early in life and tend to last a lifetime. Rates of obesity and other diet-related health conditions are soaring, and the medical costs associated with obesity have risen to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

In the upcoming farm bill in Congress, policymakers have an opportunity to make the needed improvement to nutrition programs. The nation’s largest nutrition program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program, is reauthorized in the farm bill. Most importantly, SNAP benefits must be maintained, not reduced.

In addition, SNAP should continue to scale up provisions that encourage using benefits to purchase healthy foods. The farm bill can also provide more healthy foods to schools and daycare centers. Allowing schools to purchase more locally or regionally grown foods when possible would also benefit struggling small farmers and rural communities.

The United States also responds directly to hunger and malnutrition in the developing world with food aid and agricultural development assistance. These programs now focus on pregnant and lactating women and children younger than age two. Even brief episodes of hunger among people in these vulnerable groups are cause for alarm. A third of all child deaths are attributable to malnutrition, while survivors face lifelong physical and/or cognitive disabilities.

The United States should strengthen its traditional role as the largest provider of food aid while also moving quickly to improve nutritional quality. New mothers, young children, and other vulnerable people, such as those living with HIV/AIDS, can benefit from the highly nutritious forms of food aid now available. These cost more than the foods normally included in U.S. food aid, but it is possible to reduce costs by purchasing in or near countries where they are needed.

The U.S. government must also meet its financial commitments to Feed the Future, the innovative U.S. global hunger and food security initiative critical to long-term progress against hunger. Feed the Future represents the government’s strongest support in decades for agricultural development in poor countries. Agricultural development assistance is especially valuable because the vast majority of poor people in developing countries earn their living by farming.

The United States must make larger investments in agricultural research to help meet the global need to produce crops that can feed a growing population, respond to shifts in dietary patterns, and adapt to changes in climate. Current funding for both U.S. research institutions and the international network of agricultural research centers is hardly adequate to meet these challenges.

All poverty-focused development assistance is instrumental in helping poor countries to achieve the Millennium Development goals. Cuts to the U.S. foreign assistance budget, including USAID’s operating budget, would harm efforts to make foreign assistance more effective, efficient, and sustainable.

Some people may feel that all the above only has to deal with politics and priorities of the federal government, but that is certainly not the case for those of us who call ourselves Christians and Catholics. I remind us of what is stated in The Catechism of the Catholic Church ##2439-2440:

“Rich nations have a grave moral responsibility toward those which are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves or have been prevented from doing so by tragic historical events. It is a duty in solidarity and charity; it is also an obligation in justice if the prosperity of the rich nations has come from resources that have not been paid for fairly.

“Direct aid is an appropriate response to immediate, extraordinary needs caused by natural catastrophes, epidemics, and the like. But it does not suffice to repair the grave damage resulting from destitution or to provide a lasting solution to a country’s needs. It is also necessary to reform international economic and financial institutions so that they will better promote equitable relationships with less advanced countries. The efforts of poor countries working for growth and liberation must be supported. This doctrine must be applied especially in the area of agricultural labor. Peasants, especially in the Third World, form the overwhelming majority of the poor.”

FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

We find it difficult to hear God speak when our hearts are broken. Like Job, we feel our troubles are endless, and our lives are joyless and full of drudgery. Day after day drags on, with no hope in sight. At night, it seems that the dawn will never come. Job wondered if he would ever rise again. If that wasn’t enough, Job’s wife told him, “Why don’t you curse God and die!”

God was not indifferent to Job’s pain, nor to ours. God hears our cries and sends Jesus to speak healing to all who are afflicted. When we are too weak to stand, he grasps us by the hand and raises us up.

Paul continued Jesus’ mission. What he had received, he shared freely with others. He became all things to all people, that he might be a means of salvation to them. Like Paul, who imitated Jesus for the sake of the gospel, we need to serve others, knowing that we will share in its blessings.

For Reflection: Do I find joy or drudgery in my ministry, in my daily life? What do I need to do to be renewed? How can I bring more energy and excitement to each day?

A LETTER FROM FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians he calls the people of Corinth, who were very ordinary people like you and me, to live extraordinary lives. He tells them to be imitators of Christ as he is. St. Paul makes the same appeal to us: to be imitators of Christ.

Paul gave this instruction to Christians who were often at odds with one another and with others as well. Paul told them to love anyway, because God loved them and had reconciled them in Christ. Now they were to imitate Christ by being reconcilers in turn.

St. Paul tells us that we continue the mission of Jesus Christ in the world. We do so personally and we do so together in the Body of Christ, his Church. This is the great mystery of our vocation, our calling in Christ, to be his presence in the world, and so—as the title of our Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan tells us—to reflect the light of Christ himself.

In Mark’s gospel, 1:40-45, he details the mission of Jesus to be continued today. Jesus heals a leper. In this simple but profound encounter between an ailing person and Jesus, we see the Lord’s mission among us. He is the generous and healing presence of God in this world. His generosity knows no bounds. No one is beyond his reach, even the most marginalized—as lepers were in the time of Jesus. No one is beyond his mercy, even the greatest sinners. No one is beyond the light of his teaching, even those most opposed to him. Jesus creates a new community, recruiting the healthy and the sick, saints and sinners. This new community is to introduce the world to its savior by imitating him day after day, year after year until he returns in glory.

In this world, we find everything measured out and carefully rationed. We live in a strict and unforgiving economy that gives so much and only so much for the dollar. In the mission and ministry of Jesus, it is otherwise. His presence among us is sheer generosity, sheer gift.

We are told, “Be imitators of Christ.” Extend his mission in the world. Be his generous, healing, and compassionate presence. More specifically, share his generosity with other people, beginning with your family and then in the workplace and in your community. Be generous as was Christ in a truly spiritual way by praying for others and treating them generously, even our enemies.

Imitate the generosity of Jesus also in a material way. Care for the poor as he cared for the poor. Even more specifically, I ask you to be generous in your support of the Annual Catholic Appeal. The Appeal enables us to imitate Christ and extend his mission in our world and to do this together as his body.

In the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Annual Catholic Appeal sustains Catholic schools and parishes, programs of religious education and ministerial formation, and initiatives to foster respect for life and to make the world more just, peaceful, and loving. In this year dedicated in our Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan to teens and young adults, the Annual Catholic Appeal supports efforts to pass on the treasures of faith to a new generation of believers. Beyond the Archdiocese, the Appeal serves people in need worldwide, through Catholic Relief Services, without regard for religious affiliation, when their lives are devastated by illness, wars and famines and by natural disasters. Every element of our mission, every one of our efforts reflects our service as imitators of Christ.

When you celebrate the Holy Eucharist, you experience the absolute generous and compassionate presence of Jesus: this is my Body given up for you, this is my Blood poured out for you. Here we learn who Christ is. Here we learn his mission. And here we learn to imitate his generosity.

Please join me in making a generous gift to the Annual Catholic Appeal. Your faith and your generosity inspire me. I am grateful for your witness. I thank God for you and I pray to God for you. Please pray for me as well.

I thank you for your willingness to be part of this year’s Annual Catholic Appeal. May God bless you and your loved ones.

+Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago

ANNUAL CATHOLIC APPEAL 2012

Please spend some time this week reflecting on the Annual Catholic Appeal brochure that you will find in the pews this weekend. We encourage you to take a brochure home with you as you decide upon your pledge or one-time gift. While funding a number of Archdiocesan ministries, the Appeal supports parish ministries that provide religious education to children, youth and adults in economically disadvantaged communities. It is also one of the largest philanthropic sources of financial assistance for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese.

Please remember that the Annual Catholic Appeal campaign is much different than a one-time special collection. It is a pledge campaign where you can make a gift payable in installments.

As you review the work enabled by your contribution to the Annual Catholic Appeal, please reflect on God’s gifts to you. He has given you all that you have. Your gifts to our parish, to the Archdiocese and to the work of the Church throughout the world are given in gratitude for the continuing gifts that God gives you.

Sometimes it is difficult to envision how one pledge can help an organization the size of our Archdiocese, how it can make a real difference. But each pledge does make a difference because all parishes participate in the campaign and the gifts of many enable our Archdiocese to deliver needed ministries and services.

Our combined gifts not only signify our gratitude to God; they fund a significant portion of the work of our Archdiocese. After our parish goal of $12,452.00 is reached in cash, 100% of the additional funds come back to our parish to help fund our needs.

If you received your pledge form in the mail, please complete it and mail it back or bring it to Mass next weekend. For those of you who did not receive a mailing or have not had time to respond to it, we will conduct our in-pew pledge process at all Masses next weekend.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration and generous response.

A GREAT RENEWAL OPPORTUNITY

During the months of February and March we are offering a program in the St. Clare Auditorium that will encourage participants to explore their Catholic faith in a deeper way.

Fr. Glenn Phillips, O.F.M., has entitled his presentations “Pull Up a Chair…” These sessions will be offered on Wednesdays from 12:10-12:50 beginning on February 1 and running through March 28. Are you looking more closely at our Catholic Faith? Returning to practice it? Unfamiliar with it? Stumbling to formulate your questions about Catholic matters? Or matters of God? Fr. Glenn hopes to give an organic presentation of the Faith in its wholeness, and he will refer to The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults in the process.

Pull up a chair. God has approached us. What is there to hear and see, to profess and live? Come on down and be part of the process. All are welcome.

WORLDWIDE MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER

“…a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided” (Second Reading from last Sunday). Spouses, learn how to honor the Lord by improving the sacrament of your marriage. Take some well deserved time for just the two of you to deepen your communication, strengthen your relationship, rekindle your romance and renew your sacrament by attending the next Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekends for the Chicago/Northwest Indiana area on March 2-4, 2012, June 8-10, 2012 or September 7-9, 2012. Early registration is highly recommended. For reservations/information, call Jim and Kris at 1-800-442-3554 or contact us through www.wwmechicago-gary.org. For a weekend en Espanol (other dates), contact Oscar and Luz at 847-675-2119 or Aurelio and Letitia at 773-284-5308.

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