Faith, Hope, and Charity

“When the trials of life feel like they have you rushing without control down a river of despair, cling to the presence and purposefulness of God. Just know you are not alone; 

“…Sometimes, we may be tempted to conclude from our circumstances that God has abandoned us or that He is displeased with us. But what if whatever we are passing through were intended to reveal something else? What if God means to show us the preciousness of his Love, while strengthening our faith?...”

 (Diocese of East Anglia, Keith Morris, 26 May 2024.  For the full article, see https://www.rcdea.org.uk/jesus-is-always-close-to-you-says-fr-alvan/  

“In the latest in his Voice of Hope series, Fr Alvan Ibeh explores what to do when you think all hope is lost.

“Have you ever felt like all hope is lost, and all you want is to call it quits? Have you been waiting on God for an answer to a prayer request you made a long time ago, yet it feels like nothing is forthcoming, and now you feel like the whole situation is hopeless and God is no longer worth waiting for?

“Let us look at the story of a man in the gospel of John 5:1-14 and see the message God has for us.

“The gospel reports that there was a man who had an illness which has lasted for 38 years. Jesus met him lying close to the pool of Bethesda, which is believed to have healing powers. The belief is that whoever manages to enter the pool first, whenever the pool is stirred or troubled, will be healed. Well, we are unaware of how many people were healed. We are more interested in Jesus’ encounter with this man.

“Now, when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed, his answer was not Yes or No, but ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me’ (verse 7).

“As we can see from his response, he has been coming here every time since he became ill, yet not even a single person has noticed him and offered to help him. Guess they were all busy with their problems, too busy to notice him. Sometimes we are also too busy with ourselves that we don’t see others around us who may need our help.

“We can imagine the frustration in the answer this man gave Jesus. But I think this man has something to teach us still. He had been coming to the pool for almost 38 years and yet had no one offering to help him into the pool like others.

“Remember, 38 years is a very long time. That he continued coming even when no one was noticing him means that he was not ready to give up even when things seemed hopeless for Him. Can you pause and ask yourself this critical and challenging question: As a Christian, can I wait on God that long? Can I still trust Him when it looks like the future is bleak? Do I think God is worth waiting for?...

“[Jesus] noticed him straight away, and the gospel says, when Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’ (verse 6). Isaiah 49:8 says, ‘ Thus says the Lord: At the time of my favour I have answered you, on the day of salvation I have helped you.’

“God has his appointed or favoured time (Galatians 4:4). No matter how long it takes, He is never late but arrives at the right time….

“He often comes when we are not expecting Him. When it feels like we are feeling hopeless, he comes and restores our hope. God can minister to your deepest needs, no matter how trapped you feel in your problems. Don’t let your situation cause you to lose hope. Don’t give up too soon because giving up is never an option. Stay faithful to God’s promises for you in his word, and He will come through for you. Remain blessed.”

The Diocese of East Anglia, Keith Morris, 29 August 2022.  https://www.rcdea.org.uk/what-to-do-when-you-think-all-hope-is-lost/

“Life often presents challenges that expose our weaknesses and limitations. Whether physical, emotional, or mental, we all have shortcoming that can seem insurmountable….our weaknesses are not a barrier to God’s word but an opportunity for His power to be revealed….”

 (Diocese of East Anglia, Keith Morris, 29 October 2024.  For the full article, see https://www.rcdea.org.uk/overcoming-challenges-through-faith/

“…We are living in a world filled with diverse beliefs and countless paths to spiritual fulfilment. This makes it therefore important to note that the decision to follow Jesus, remains one of personal choice rather than compulsion. This foundational aspect of Christianity underscores the importance of free will, love and personal conviction in the journey of faith….

"This voluntary aspect of our Christian vocation is crucial because it aligns with the nature of God, who desires a genuine relationship with His followers, not one born out of coercion….”

 (Diocese of East Anglia, Keith Morris, 31 August 2024.  For the full article, see https://www.rcdea.org.uk/a-hope-that-you-can-believe-in/  

“Fr Alvan Ibeh takes a look at the power of pressure in his latest Voice of Hope column….We may not always be pressured, but we often are. We’re not always perplexed, but it happens more than we think….

"No one is exempt from these things, even if you are the greatest prayer warrior on earth….

"One will still ask at this point, ‘If God truly loves us, is it fair then that He should allow us to be pressured at all, even though Jesus experienced pressure Himself?...’

"…God presses you because there is something He sees in you. Feeling pressure means you are doing something that matters, so you must not stop, just keep pressing forward….”

 (Diocese of East Anglia, Keith Morris, 7 July 2024.  For the full article, see https://www.rcdea.org.uk/the-power-of-pressure/

“…We [appeal] to everyone who has the ability to do so, to participate in the democratic process by exercising their hard-won right to vote. Even where there is no candidate who reflects the full range of a voter's values or aspirations, it is still a fundamental Christian duty to maximise the good we can do by taking part in the democratic process….”

 (Independent Catholic News, 25 June 2024).  For the full article see https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/50062

John Wyclif, in Of Prelates in 1382, wrote “Charite schuld bigyne at hem-self” and others, such as John Marston (1610) and Sir Thomas Browne (1642) have proved authors of its use as “Charity begins at home.” It is, in my view, used too frequently to discourage charitable giving to others, especially foreigners: that is, “charity should begin at home and end there.” That’s a pity, because it shows ignorance of the origin of the saying. The notion that family should be one’s foremost concern is in 1 Timothy 5:8:    “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

This is not a recommendation to have compassion only for one’s nearest and dearest. It and the proverb itself are much deeper in meaning than an exhortation to meanness. For me, an Australian Baptist Minister, Melinda Cousins, summed it up in a blog, six years ago:

“… my understanding is that the saying as it was originally taken up …. was meant to refer to the fact that virtues are cultivated in the everyday – that is, we learn to be compassionate and charitable people at home; [and] that capacity within us as human beings begins to develop there, and then grows as we exercise it outside the home.” 

‘Can we please stop saying ‘Charity begins at home?’ Thinking Aloud 2014

The word ‘charity’ entered the English language to mean ‘Christian love for others’, especially the poor. It has often been linked to agapé, or unconditional love, the most Christ-like love there can be. That’s a far cry from restricting compassion to just your aunty.

As we learn to love God through experience of His love for us, so we learn how that kind of loving can be the route to helping those in need, wherever in the world they are, and thus demonstrating, with the humility and tenderness agapé requires, God’s love and His Son’s offer of salvation.                                                                                            

                                                                         TC

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CHARITY AND THE POOR
Last week we saw that charity does begin at home, when “home” is your heart stirred by God’s love into having compassion for others, that is, the poor, whether poor in spirit or in material things. Let us look at the latter. 

Pope Francis has summed up the issue succinctly, as usual:  “Jesus tells us what the ‘protocol’ is, on which we will be judged. It is the one we read in chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel: I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was in prison, I was sick, I was naked and you helped me, clothed me, visited me, took care of me. Whenever we do this to one of our brothers, we do this to Jesus. Caring for our neighbour; for those who are poor, who suffer in body and in soul, for those who are in need. This is the touchstone.”  From Papa Francesco: Questa economia uccide (Pope Francis: This economy kills) by Andrea Tornielli &. Giacomo Galeazzivia  

This will be news to few of us. There are an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, every one of whom will have heard this extract from Matthew’s Gospel. One in twelve people in the UK are Catholic – that’s 5 million people in our country who have heard this bit of Good News.  There are 736 million in the world in extreme poverty, who have little or no access to fresh water or adequate health care and, if they are employed at all, earn less than £1.42 per day. What could you do with only £1.42 a day or the equivalent of £9.94 for a seven day working week?  

Here in England it has recently been revealed that some workers in the garment industry are working for less than £3 per hour. Again, how would you manage on £150 (gross) for a 50 hour week?  It is mystifying why these inequalities continue, when there are so many of us charged by Jesus to aid the poor. What to do? We’ll look at that next week.  [Statistics about global poverty are attached to this Newsletter.]                   TC

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CHARITY & THE POOR – HOW TO CREATE A TSUNAMI
In 2015, more than 700 million people, or 10 per cent of the world population, lived in extreme poverty, struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation. Until 2019, That figure dropped dramatically to less than 5 per cent. 

However, the COVID-19 pandemic is reversing the trend of poverty reduction, with tens of millions of people in risk of being pushed back into extreme poverty - people living on less than $1.90/day - causing the first increase in global poverty in more than 20 years. Given the scale of the problem, it seems that ordinary people, like you and me, can do little to stop this trend. That is not true. There is much that we can do locally, and for the world 

There is much we can do:  

• Supporting the Food Bank each month. This is crucial for the Food Bank’s survival and the sustenance of the poor among us;
• Supporting missionaries who help the poor around the world by saving money through the Red Box campaign;
• Buying fairly traded [Fairtrade] goods, which mean poor producers can get fair profits and trade their way out of poverty;
• Living simply so that climate change can be slowed and the poor better protected from climate disasters;
• Donating to CAFOD to support its campaigns for the poor;
• Supporting the annual Shoebox campaign;
• And many more initiatives that each of us get involved in.

These may be small acts of generosity, but small gestures build up to create tsunamis of love for our neighbours here and across the world.                                    TC

“As Christians await their death and the final judgment of God, the Gospel tells them what they must do to be welcomed into heaven: love others because God is love, Pope Francis said.

“In life ‘we are in the waiting room of the world,’ hoping to hear Jesus say, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father,’… the pope said during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on 2nd November, the feast of All Souls….

“The Gospel reading at the Mass was St. Matthew’s description of the last judgment when those who fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger and visited the prisoner are welcomed into God’s kingdom, and those who neglected to care for others are sent into ‘the eternal fire.’…

“’The best careers, the greatest achievements, the most prestigious titles and accolades, the accumulated riches and earthly gains-all will vanish in a moment,’ the pope said.

“But the Gospel of Matthew makes clear what will last, he said: love and care for others, especially the poor and those usually discarded by society….

“The Gospel teaches people how to live while awaiting death and God’s judgment-‘loving because he is love,’ Pope Francis said. God ‘waits for us among the poor and wounded of the world. And he is waiting to be caressed not with words but with deeds.’…”

 Used with permission Universe Catholic Weekly, 2 Nov 2022

For a complete version of this article, visit the following web link:

https://universecatholicweekly.co.uk/all-souls-day-2/

“…The Holy Father … asked those present to stop and reflect on the phrase ‘to love always and to love everyone’.

“Jesus' words today invite us to love always, said the Pope. ‘He knows that within our relationships there is a daily struggle between love and hatred’, and in this way, too, within our hearts ‘there is a daily clash between light and darkness’. With this in mind, the Pope noted that Jesus suffers when He sees, all around the world, ‘ways of exercising power that feed on oppression and violence, seeking to expand their own space by restricting that of others, imposing their own domination and restricting basic freedoms, and in this way oppressing the weak’.

“We must always strive for peace, said the Pope, adding that ‘peace cannot be restored if a harsh word is answered with an even harsher one, if one slap leads to another.’…”

Used with permission from Independent Catholic News, Source: Vatican News, 6 Nov 2022

For a complete version of this article, visit the following web link:

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/45857

“Faith and prayer. These sisters of my spiritual journey walk hand in hand. Faith draws me to prayer, and prayer reactivates my faith. One nurtures the other. 

“My faith was birthed within a farming community who worshiped at a small parish church. Amid that congregation I was baptized, made my first Communion, and received Confirmation. It was not in church, however, that I learned to pray in a way that nourished and strengthened my religious faith. This took place in the schoolhouse next door. 

“There, a young Franciscan sister taught me that prayer is about relationship. She encouraged her young students to “talk to Jesus, who is always with you.” I never comprehended this tremendous gift until my younger brother drowned at age 23. Amid the shock and grief of that death, I turned to my belief in a God who stays with us when life goes well and continues to be there when life goes miserably. I didn’t stop praying during that bleak-hearted time, because faith assured me of God’s compassionate closeness. 

“Trappist monk Thomas Merton insisted prayer is often the best when “our hearts have turned to stone.” When we least feel like praying, it’s the very time to do so. That’s when faith takes us by the hand, lifts us up, and urges us to go to the One whose love strengthens and sustains us. 

“Etty Hillisum, a young Jewish woman who died at Auschwitz, knew how faith and prayer intertwine. One day she knelt to pray. She had never knelt before. It was a powerful moment of surrender. Etty didn’t ask to be released from her situation. Instead, she gave herself over in faith, trusting that, whatever happened, God would be with her. I have come to see how I need this kind of faith to bond me daily with the heart of God. And I need prayer to keep me there. 

“When I allow faith to hold me steady in prayer, I bring a richer and fuller awareness to liturgical worship. Likewise, when I allow prayer to hold me steady in faith, I experience the ups and downs of daily life with significantly greater peace. 

“Thomas Merton: A Prayerful Life 

“Thomas Merton has been called one of the most influential Catholic writers of the 20th century. … Merton converted to the Catholic faith in 1938 and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky, four years later. 

“During his time at the abbey, Merton traveled a path of self-understanding and became involved in a number of political issues, such as civil rights and the nuclear arms race. In his later years, he worked to promote East-West dialogue. In 1968, Merton traveled to the Far East, where he met with the Dalai Lama ….. It was during this trip that Merton died. 

“But it was his thirst for God that lingers with us still. He once wrote, ‘As Christ said, the seed in the ground must die. To be a seed in the ground of one’s very life is to dissolve in that ground in order to become fruitful. One disappears into Love, in order to 'be Love.'"

           Used with permission from Franciscan Media (www.FranciscanMedia.org)https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/a-faith-prayed?utm_campaign=Franciscan%20Spirit&utm_medium=email&utm_content=213646427&utm_source=hs_email  

“…’Don't despair, and live your faith in public….”

(Independent Catholic News, James Somerville-Meikle, Source: Catholic Union, 11 June 2024).  For the full article see https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/49965

We welcome Fr. Mark Odion, MSP, of the Missionary Society of St. Paul (MSP) this morning who will speak on the work of the mission.  The MSP is a religious congregation working in different parts of the world, committed to spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ and the salvific work of God the Father in the Holy Spirit.  

See the flyer in the Special Notices section of the Newsletter page on our website for ways to offer financial support (there will be a retiring collection) and contact details.