By Fr. Jesus Maria Aristin, CP
According to the estimates of United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) there were 1,020 million undernourished people in the world in 2009, equivalent to one in seven persons alive today. As noted by the FAO Director General, Jacques Diourf, this last year produced “a dangerous combination between a declining global economy and high unemployment rates in many countries, causing an increase of 105 million more people to experience chronic hunger and poverty.”
As a response to this reality, FAO proposed the expression:” Achieving Food Security in the time of crisis” as the motto for the 2009 World Hunger Day.
It would not be a small thing if the celebration of World Hunger Day would produce this result: those who have an abundance of material goods would commitment themselves to a simpler lifestyle, one of reasonable asceticism and share their overabundance with those who do not have the resources to feed themselves. Faithful to our Savior’s recommendation, we pray daily the prayer He taught us. The petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is in the plural. The Christian knows very well that he or she cannot hide behind an attitude of self serving egoism. Jesus teaches us to be responsible for others in their need. This prayer becomes truly authentic when it leads to a sincere commitment of solidarity in explicit ways.
We also pray that the steps taken to achieve the Millennium Development Goals are motivated by a deep respect for and the valorization of farm workers and their cultures. The 1996 Agreement to Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger proposed to reduce it in half by the year, 2015. The reality is that there are more people with hunger today (820 million) than there were in 1996. This statistic increases by four million every year. (cf. Oración y Servicio, 2008.3)
Faithful to our Lord’s recommendation, we pray the prayer He taught us. We pray to the Father for bread, and we use the plural formula: “give us this day our daily bread.” The “Our Father” is the prayer of communion, which gives us the awareness that we do not approach God only by ourselves alone. Rather it gives us the confidence approach to God in union with one another. We are invited to see the face of God in the face of our neighbor, the neighbor we are obliged to be interested in, especially when he or she is weak and lacks necessary nourishment. Jesus himself tells us, “when you do this to one of my least brethren, you do this to me.” (Matt. 25:40) With this prayer, Jesus gives us the direction to move out of our own egotistical nature and to take on the needs of others as our own needs. It is then when our prayer becomes sincere, leading to a commitment of solidarity which is explicitly expressed.
In solidarity with the International Passionist office of Justice Peace and the Integrity of Creation please take some time to reflect and pray on this issue. After viewing the video below please consider praying the following prayer with your own local community, parish or family. This week’s Passionist JPIC email bulletin will include a fuller liturgical resource for World Food Day. If you would like to receive this email please email me (jdgonzocpp@yahoo.com) to be added to the list.
Side Two: Through Your grace, provide the nutrients we need to plough and plant, to tend and train the budding vines of compassion and care. May we hear and respond to the cries of millions of men, women, and children who hunger for life itself and are desperate for survival for just one more day.
Side One: Wean us from our normal diet of disregard and empty distraction. Help us to push back from the crowded table of self-preoccupation. Draw us instead to a common table where there is room and welcome for all, where all are fed.
Side Two: Help us to work to ensure that empty bowls be replaced by nourishing bonds of community so that no one is forced to beg at the edge of the road of life.
Side One: In places where war and violence are the cause of widespread hunger, call us to the inclusive table of peace and replace all fear and destruction with just ways to reconstruct security, home, and hope.
Side Two: May our actions and advocacy sow seeds of solidarity so that we might work as one body in Christ to eliminate the scandal of hunger, the politics of food assistance and the death of too many children as a result of starvation.
Side One: Bless the land and all those who work the land. Preserve us from drought and flood, from blight and disease. Grant all farmers increased yields, abundant harvests, sustainable production, and fair prices in the marketplace for these farmers, their families, and their futures.
All: Gracious God, nourish our world with hope and call your people to the table of cooperation. Bless our efforts to work for food security and eliminate hunger so that all might know a harvest of justice. May our attempts to end hunger not be politicized or prophesied, but realized in the sharing of our daily bread. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen
In 1969 the Passionists had renewed their Constitutions. The new Constitution spells out in a forceful way that the Passion of Christ continues in the world today in the oppression of the poor, in the denial of basic human rights, in the violence of war, and even in the destruction of the earth’s environment. Fr. Parson’s realized the province’s investment portfolio could address this contemporary Passion of Christ. He began to relate to ICCR and heard about the situation in Chile where a coup against the socialist government of Aliende had installed a military dictator. What concerned him even more was that a large US transnational corporation, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), was accused of using money funneled by our CIA to finance the coup. The allegation was that they were afraid the socialist government would nationalize their operations in Chile. This corporation was owned in the Passionist investment portfolio.
Fr. Parsons asked me to attend the ITT annual meeting in Pittsburgh to move our resolution. I felt very intimidated walking into this enormous hall. There were several other members of ICCR there ready to support and talk very eloquently on this issue. To this day I do not remember the vote. But the important thing was that a light had been thrown on this issue. ITT had to stand up in public to deal with it. Hopefully they would not repeat these actions in other countries of the world. Today corporate management knows that there are shareholders moved by faith that will speak the truth to power.
Caritas in Veritate suggest to us that this individualist economic attitude is a perversion. It is a perversion that in this country strikes both political platforms because this attitude is endemic in our society. When the left generally advocate for abortion they advocate from the perspective of an individual’s right to privacy over the right to the potential life of another. When the right generally argue against public services and programs for the common good they do so from a perspective of individual’s economic right not to be taxed to pay for services for others. It is a falsehood to ascribe any moral superiority between one camp versus the other, because in the end both perspectives are blinded by a perverse attitude.
The history of our founder demonstrates that he placed great emphasis in equating the mystery of Christ Passion and death with the ongoing suffering that people continue to experience. This message of redemptive suffering was a prominant part of his charism and continues to be a core part of Passionist spirituality. However St. Paul of the Cross was also well known for his dedication in placing a priority on the suffering of the poor. As he developed the religious community which originally he called “the Poor of Jesus” and then eventually he went with “Congregation of the Passion” he placed a special emphasis in having this community serve the poor and marginalized in central Italy. There was a place called the Maremma (marshes) where people who were poor and sick with leprosy and turbuculosis (among other diseases) were sent. Although there were many Priest and clergy in those days almost none of them would go to these places, one of the reasons for this is because teams of roaming bandits also lived in these places to escape the civil authority. So St. Paul of the Cross made it a point to preach and minister to this community.
similar employments afforded him. On one occasion, when Father Paul was giving the exercises publicly in a city in 1759, he found out that the poor were in distress because they were obliged to pay back the loan of wheat received for their nourishment during the past winter from the public deposit, without having the means of repaying it, as the harvest had been very scanty that year. The law was just going to be carried into effect against them, and the poor creatures were reduced to extreme distress. Father Paul, moved with compassion for them and their misery, recommended so earnestly and forcibly from the platform to those gentlemen that governed this public office to grant some delay. Showing so tender and cordial a compassion, he moved the hearts of the Vice President and all the gentlemen who had anything to do with the affair, and obtained that payment should not be called for until the following year, to the universal consolation of the poor. He grieved deeply when the poor were abandoned. 