Columban Mission - March/April 2010

The Magazine of the Missionary Society of St. Columban

March/April 2010

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Volume 93 - number 2 - march/April 2010

o n t e n t s

Columban Mission

The Issue Theme: The Bread of Life

Published by The Columban FaThers

exquisite foods

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Columban mission (issn 0095-4438) is published eight times a year. A minimum donation of $10 a year is required to receive a subscription.

Send address and other contact information changes by calling our toll-free number, by sending the information to our mailing address or by e-mailing us at miSSionoFFiCe@ColumbAn.org. mailing address: Columban mission Po box 10 St. Columbans, ne 68056-0010 Toll-Free Phone: 877/299-1920 Website: WWW.ColumbAn.org Copyright © 2010, the Columban Fathers (legal title) Publisher Fr. Arturo AguilAr, SSC direCtoruSA@ColumbAn.org

bread for the body and soul 4 5 9

11 lent: a season of hope 12

“i Was hungry and you gave me food.”

Managing editor KAte Kenny KKenny@ColumbAn.org

Homelessness and hunger grow in California.

editorial assistant

pizza and beer on the 4th of July

Connie WAChA CWAChA@ColumbAn.org

A missionary leap into internationalism

food Crisis: a Columban response Working with others to alleviate world hunger

14 ChiCken Wings and mashed potatoes

A seminarian offers material and spiritual sustenance to the homeless.

18 some theologiCal refleCtions on land and food Agriculture and agribusiness

21 reverenCe for riCe and life Rice is life in Asia.

departments 3 in so many Words 23 from the direCtor To Live With Intent

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editor Sr. JeAnne JAnSSen, CSJ JJAnSSen@ColumbAn.org

editorial board Fr. Arturo AguilAr, SSC JeSuS mAnuel VArgAS gAmboA Sr. JeAnne JAnSSen, CSJ KAte Kenny JeFF norton Fr. riChArd Steinhilber, SSC Connie WAChA

the missionary Society of St. Columban was founded in 1918 to proclaim and witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. the Society seeks to establish the Catholic Church where the gospel has not been preached, help local churches evangelize their laity, promote dialogue with other faiths, and foster among all baptized people an awareness of their missionary responsibility.

Cover and graphic design by Kristin Ashley

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Different Hungers, Different Foods

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e are body-soul unities. Consequently, we need food for both soul and body.

Contrary to common opinion, Jesus was not downplaying the need for bread when, in the Temptation story, He said, “not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Not body-food alone, not soul-food alone, but both. When Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread,” she was not comparing degrees of urgency. Different hungers, different foods.

In the hierarchy of human needs—as distinct from values—food for the body takes precedence over food for the soul. Just offer starving people a choice between bread and music; they will postpone their soul-needs until their stomachs no longer ache.

Then, there is also a distinction between food for survival and food for celebration—a distinction of which Jesus was aware. While He emphasized feeding the hungry to the extent of identifying with them—“I was hungry and you gave me to eat”—He knew how to celebrate with His friends. n o any ordS He was not minimizing the need for food when He instructed His first missionaries to take “no bread”

By Fr. Thomas P. Reynolds for their journey. After all, He had taught them to put their trust in God’s Providence—as the birds of the air must do and also the lilies of the field—assuring them that if they knocked, doors would be opened and that if they searched, they would find. For Him, food was the gift of a loving Parent-God who would not hand His children a stone if they asked for bread. Wherefore, He also instructed them to ask their Abba/Father daily for just “today’s bread.”

But even “today’s bread” can serve for survival or celebration. While the Pharisees condemned the latter use of food, Jesus defended it. By way of thumbnail selfportrait, He once declared, “The Son of man came eating and drinking.” And the Pharisaic kill-joys called Him “a glutton and a drunkard.” So important to Him was celebratory meal-sharing that He often made the dinner-table His pulpit and the meal His lesson. The Last Supper was His final and greatest table-celebration and legacy—His self-gift as Eucharistic bread.

In this issue we meet several Columban missionaries who work among the poorest of the poor. They know how to imitate Jesus in the use of food and in respect for God’s food-producing earth. They feed the hungry— even in economically rich cities; they celebrate with their parishioners—even in economically poor cities; and they protest when the good earth’s food production is manipulated by greedy corporate interests.

Enjoy your food today; it is God’s gift.

I S M

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“The Son of man

came eating and drinking.”

Fr. T.P. Reynolds lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

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March/April 2010

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“I was hungry and you gave me food.”

Homelessness and Hunger Grow in California by ariel Presbitero

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aturday morning is always a busy time at the St. Francis Center in downtown Los Angeles, California, where I volunteer to help feed the homeless. The center is not big enough to cater to the growing number of homeless people in the city of the angels. It has a dining hall which serves approximately 40 people at one time, and a kitchen for volunteers like me who prepare the food which includes coffee, fruit, soup, bread and more.

There’s a pantry in the center where other volunteers help to package food, toiletries and fresh

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produce to donate to the families who come later in the day.

The day starts with the preparation of the dining hall.

The volunteers get all the tables and chairs ready, unfolding them to set up the dining area with reasonable space for everybody to move around, bring their food and sit. While we are doing this inside the hall, people are starting to line up outside, patiently waiting until everything is done and they can enter in an orderly fashion.

In the kitchen, there are different groups of people from various parish communities who

are volunteering their time and effort for a few hours at the center.

The volunteers work on many tasks from setting up the seating area at the start of the day to washing and cleaning up at the end of the day. Volunteers prepare the big food warmer, make coffee, arrange plates, cutlery, napkins and cups.

They heat up the pre-cooked soup, make salad and toast the bread. All of these tasks are done in a very organized way. Although nobody actively directs the volunteers, a staff member at the center is always available to answer questions such as the location of the cups or heating pans. The volunteers seem to jump into whatever work they see that needs to be done.

Less than an hour after the volunteers begin, the food is ready to serve. The person in charge at the door is constantly counting the people coming in because of the limited seats inside the hall.

As the people cross the threshold of the door, most of them greet the volunteers and staff with a “good morning” and a nice smile.

There are some people who don’t smile, but it might be because they had a bad night on the street or something happened to them early that morning. Plates are ready with beans, salad and bread. The people www.columban.org

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can choose coffee, milk or juice to drink. Desserts are served on the table by the other volunteers.

When I first started volunteering, my job was to pour coffee in the cups. I must have done a good job, because the next time I went, I was in charge of the bread and hotdogs, the first stop after people picked up their beverages. It was not an easy job, since we don’t want people to receive unequal amounts of food.

Another concern is the speed of service. We don’t want people to wait too long in line or outside for the first group to finish. As a result, the service needs to be fast like a food court in a shopping mall.

One day while I was going around to the tables to see if anybody wanted a refill of coffee, a man suddenly grabbed me. He was a man who might be in his 60s. With my head down trying to listen to what he was saying amid the bustle of the hall, I suddenly realized that he had started praying www.columban.org

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for me. He held my head, and he said a prayer in a language that I didn’t understand. Other people at his table were looking at us, and one told me that he was praying.

I didn’t understand a single word he uttered, but I felt a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the blessings he received and gratitude for the people who made this service possible. For me it was a blessing, in whatever language he expressed it; I felt so grateful that a person was praying for me.

I thanked him in return for this act of blessing, and we exchanged smiles for this brief encounter. He continued eating and enjoyed the fresh cooked food and nice hot cup of coffee.

I didn’t feel tired after all the hard work spent in the center that morning. I keep remembering this act of prayer; it stayed in my heart. Here was a man, surviving on the streets of Los Angeles, who shared his gift of prayer with somebody he doesn’t know, just

someone that he sees doing something to help even in a small way. His prayer held great love. He may have been physically hungry and homeless, but he shared great spiritual plenty and an abundance of grace.

With the downturn of the country’s economy, homelessness and hunger in the country are becoming more prevalent. When I first volunteered in that center three years ago, we served 75 people. The number doubled the year after, and now it serves more than 350 people just in one day. It is open every single day to serve and feed the hungry people in the city.

There are other feeding centers around the Los Angeles area, but this tiny center brings joy to hungry people and a smile when they receive care, love and attention from others especially when it is coupled with a nice hot cup of coffee. “I was hungry and you gave me food.” Indeed. CM Ariel Presbitero is the Regional Lay Missionary Coordinator and Mission Outreach Coordinator in Los Angeles, California.

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Pizza and Beer on the Fourth of July A Missionary Leap into Internationalism

By Fr. G. Chris Saenz

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n July 4, 1995, I arrived in Chile for the first time. I was greeted by other Columbans and in the evening I was welcomed with an Independence Day party prepared

by U.S. Columbans in Chile and others. They had provided pizza and beer. The pizza was prepared very differently than pizza I was used to in the United States, and the celebration was small. However, it was a chance to celebrate the 4th of July in my new home.

In my subsequent years in Chile, I realized that my fervor to celebrate the 4th of July became more subdued. Since I was living and working in southern Chile, far from other U.S. Columbans, I had little chance to celebrate with other compatriots. Also, the atmosphere was not conducive to a celebration.

There were no fireworks, picnics or

At a Chilean home

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Enjoying a break

music leading into the celebration.

Since July is a winter month in Chile, the weather did not accompany the celebration. It was often cold, cloudy and rainy – not the storybook warm weather, blue sky cookout weather of the U.S. In 2002, I was alone in the parish on the 4th of July. The other Columbans were away on retreat, meetings or other business.

Therefore, I invited out to dinner the two Chilean religious Sisters who were working in the parish. In an effort to acknowledge the date as special for me and to celebrate it, the Sisters surprised me with a homemade U.S. flag that had 20 stars and five stripes (the U.S. flag has 50 stars and 13 stripes).

I enjoyed the effort, and it gave

me a quiet chuckle. We enjoyed an orange cake with three candles colored red, white and blue placed on top. The celebration was subdued by U.S. standards, but I enjoyed the conversation and sharing. It was the most festive 4th of July I celebrated in Chile.

So, what does this have to do with the missionary life?

Often in the missionary life we become acutely aware of who we are because we are surrounded by what we are not. A different culture, language, religion and set of traditions continually remind us that we are on unfamiliar ground. Yet, without losing our own national identities, we slowly begin to assume a new identity, that of the country in which we are WWW.COLUMBAN.ORG

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missioned. We missionaries begin to hear another voice, another tradition. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10: 16). As I reflect on the years I spent in Chile, I realize that I have celebrated more often the Chilean Independence Day on September 18 than I have celebrated the United States’ Independence Day. The Chilean Independence Day is unique by most international standards. It is required by law to display the Chilean flag on all houses, businesses and churches on September 18. There is a heavy fine if this law is not followed. Also, the celebration is actually initiated on August 18, a month before the actual date. Generally, on August 18, it is a small celebration of hard cider, or chicha, of apple or grapes with some small appetizers. During the following days the festivities grow, and the atmosphere becomes more festive. In the week leading up to September 18, there are many folkloric events displaying the culture, primarily the national dance of Chile, the cueca. The cueca attempts to reenact the courting ritual of the rooster and the hen with the male dancing quite enthusiastically and the female dancing more elusively and defensively.

Eventually, ramadas, or outdoor booths, are built around the neighborhoods. The ramadas are where families have food, drink and games available to friends and other families who visit. The national food, empanadas, fried or baked pies in the shape of a crescent moon, are served. Often the empanadas are filled with cheese or meat with olives and onions. The day arrives and most families spend the day www.columban.org

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Fr. Chris Saenz and parishioners in Chile

outside visiting the ramadas, eating, drinking, dancing and enjoying the fireworks in the evening.

Actually, the people are given two days holidays, September 18 and 19. Therefore, one can enjoy the festivities on September 18 until the early morning. On September 19 there is a military parade in Santiago, Chile. On September 20, everyone goes back to work.

However, some celebrate the dieciocho chico or the “little 18th” on October 18. This officially concludes the celebrations.

The most festive Chilean Independence Day I celebrated was in our parish in Puerto Saavedra in southern Chile. On that day, we Columbans decided to set up our own private ramada in the back of the parish. We prepared the traditional food and drink. Also, we played the traditional music and displayed the Chilean flag.

I looked around our Columban group of priests, lay missionaries, associate priests, religious Sisters and visitors. The cultures present in our group were from Korea, Fiji, Peru and the United States. Soon it dawned on me that there was not

a single Chilean in our group! Yet, here we were dancing, eating and celebrating just like our neighbors.

A missionary never forgets who he is and from where he comes. Yet, the crossing of borders challenges the missionary to open up to new realities and expand beyond his national boundaries. In my case, empanadas and cider replaced pizza and beer, although I enjoyed fireworks in both countries. The gathering together with family and friends to celebrate a shared cultural experience remained the same even though the location changed. Thus, listening to the voices of the people in the country where he or she is missioned, the missionary leaps from nationalism to internationalism. This leap signifies how God is present in all cultures and traditions. CM After many years in Chile, Fr. Chris Saenz is pursuing a Master’s degree at Boston College in Massachusetts.

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Exquisite Foods Special People Learn Life Skills

by Fr. chris baker

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en years ago, in an inner city Lima, Peru, parish where I was working, we launched the Association of People with Special Abilities (ASPHAD) to serve people of all ages who have physical or intellectual difficulties. With the Lord’s help and generous support from friends in several countries, we purchased an old family home and gradually added a couple of storeys to serve as the ASPHAD Center. We set up a variety of small workshop areas and a large exercise room for the special people who come to us. Our friendly center serves approximately 40 families that have at least one member with serious learning or physical difficulties.

ASPHAD students and their caregivers

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Caring for the cuyes at the Center

The ages of the special people run from 15 to 50 as they are welcome to continue learning at the Center indefinitely.

This year we have been equipping space for training and production workshops including a kitchen, computer room, rooms for sewing by hand and machine, leather work, physical therapy and stimulating games, handicrafts, traditional music and dancing. On the flat roof, protected by an arched roof of hard plastic, more than 50 breeding cuyes (small animals like guinea pigs), are producing two or three little cuyes approximately every three months.We are pleased to see how caring for the cuyes helps the special people to have

more stimulation, friendships and happiness in life.

Over the last few months, we have held two sales of cooked cuyes. It is common in Lima to see publicity for fund-raising events offering “exquisite food, drinks, and dance music.” There is a high standard here, and the women, many of them the mothers of the people who attend the Center, doing the cooking in our kitchen truly exceeded expectations. They prepared “exquisite” plates of cuy surrounded by rice and potatoes, enriched by delicious sauces. The sale of the meals provides a return on the investment in the cuyes and helps to cover some of the additional costs of running the Center as well.

Encouraged by the success of cooking and selling the cuyes, the cooks decided that they could also prepare and sell a large variety of bread and pastry items. With their shared talents and some of the special people assisting them, they needed a much larger oven and mixing bowls. One of the mothers, Ayda, whose son has a serious physical and speaking handicap, is a retired school teacher very good at all kinds of baking. She has become our main cooking and baking teacher for most of the other mothers plus our special students. www.columban.org

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The bakery will emphasize the training of those with handicaps since, in varying degrees, they can help with the mixing and shaping of whatever is being baked. The students will also get some of it to eat, as we finish around 5:30 each afternoon with some kind of a sandwich or cake and a drink, generally hot these winter days.

Our hope, of course, is to have enough products left over to keep selling them to hungry neighbors, who happen to be without any pastry shop in our area.

Hopes are high that next time our cooks and helpers prepare tasty plates of cuy, they will also be able to offer the customers an additional assortment of exquisite cakes and pastries to top off their meal. The long term goal is that the special people will also be able and willing to share in the preparing and serving of meals in their own

Preparing the cuyes

homes. Some at least also will be able to prepare really tempting food for sale on the streets.

Preparing the exquisite foods helps the special people become more independent while the money raised from the sale of the food goes to the Center to fund more projects. CM

Columban Father Chris Baker lives and works in Peru.

Food Crisis: A Columban Response Working with Others to Alleviate World Hunger by michelle melcher Knight

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n 2008, food prices spiked across the world leaving many people unable to feed themselves or their families.

Communities in countries where Columbans serve, such as Peru, the Philippines, Pakistan and China, were no exception.1 Although food prices have stabilized somewhat in most areas, prices have remained high and hunger is a daily reality for one billion people around www.columban.org

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the world.2 Since the founding of the Missionary Society of St. Columban in 1918, concern for physical needs has co-existed with concern for the spiritual needs of individuals and communities.

Columban co-founder Bishop Edward Galvin responded immediately to both the physical and spiritual hunger of the people in China when he began his mission there.3

Legislative issues surrounding the production and availability of food have been concerns for the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach (CCAO, formerly Columban JPIC) for many years.

Columban Father Seรกn McDonagh has warned of the dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods, and we have advocated against the use of GM seeds in U.S. development programs.

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The Columban Fathers have been acutely aware of the need to live in harmony with God’s creation and have supported organic agriculture programs in Peru, the Philippines, Korea and Taiwan.

In 2009, the CCAO became an active member of the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis, which is comprised of U.S.-based organizations including labor, faith, indigenous, community food, farm, environmental and trade justice groups. The goal of the group is to illuminate the underlying causes of the food crisis and to advocate for changes to the food system at every level. There are four main objectives: stabilize prices for farmers and consumers globally, rebalance power in the food system, make agriculture environmentally sustainable and guarantee the right to healthy food. Columban missionaries around the world are already engaged in making agriculture more environmentally sustainable through organic farming projects. The CCAO office has been advocating for trade that is fair as we look at the various trade agreements that are proposed and/or enacted by our legislature.

Trade that is fair and more local will help to stabilize prices.

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Currently, the working group is responding to the call by the federal government to investigate competition issues within agriculture.

Individuals, communities and the environment are all victims of corporate control of the food system, and these investigations will hopefully lead to anti-trust regulations.

Additional regulation of the food system should lead to more local control of our food and a better chance for a stable livelihood for small farmers in the U.S. and around the world, as well as more stable food availability for all.

In September of 2009, the U.S. State Department released a consultation document to begin a discussion on strategies to implement a comprehensive approach to food security. As members of the Inter-Faith Working Group on Trade and Investment (IWG), the CCAO collaborated in submitting a response statement to the document. In many ways the consultation document was a call for increased agricultural production. As Columbans have seen in the Philippines, where mono-cropping has destroyed mangrove forests, we know that simply increasing output is not the answer for hunger or poverty.

The statement from IWG focuses on development as the preferred strategy, especially development that supports small producers.

In addition, the statement recommends investing in clean energy sources at the village level, promoting culturally appropriate

diets, and developing clear guidelines for working with small producers and local communities, among other proposals. The CCAO will be continuing our work on this issue as Congress and the administration consider U.S. development funding and our efforts towards relieving food insecurity throughout the world.

The issue of food is integral to the named priorities of the Columbans: climate change, migration and economic justice.

Food lies at the heart of these issues, and we are able to see patterns of intersections. Changes in climate have altered the types of agricultural products that can be grown in a region. These alterations often force people to migrate to other areas where they can continue their former agricultural work or find new employment. In addition, trade agreements affect the ability of farmers to sell their products. The end result is that more and more people are hungry throughout the world and that now is the time for all countries, all faiths and all peoples to work together to solve the issue of global hunger. CM Michelle Melcher Knight works in the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach office in Washington, D.C.

1 Heinemann, Edward, Soaring Food Prices and the Rural Poor: Feedback from the Field, IFAD 2 The US Working Group on the Food Crisis, www.usfoodcrisisgroup.org 3 Barrett, William, The Red Lacquered Gate, 2002, Authors Choice Press, New York, NY.

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Bread for the Body and Soul A Papal Address in Lima, Peru

By Fr. Peter Woodruff

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n a balmy summer day, Tuesday, February 5, 1985, Pope John Paul II addressed thousands of Peruvian Catholics assembled on the sandy slopes of Villa El Salvador, on the southern edge of Lima, Peru. I was there to see and hear him speak of bread for both the body and the soul. His invitation of 25 years ago continues to be valid in our times.

Pope John Paul II spoke of his feeling of compassion for the residents of the poor barrios of Lima – the abandoned, sick, elderly, unemployed, and children without bread and without education for their future. He stated that he had come to offer the bread of the Word of Christ that gives meaning and dignity to life. He continued with the theme of bread, mentioning how Jesus broke bread and gave it to His disciples to distribute, symbolizing His concern for the bread for both spirit and body. In this context, the Pope reasserts the Church’s preference for the poor. He returns again to the bread theme, calling on his listeners to remember that as they pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” that “not only by bread do humans live, but also by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” However, he insists that the compassion of Jesus for those in WWW.COLUMBAN.ORG

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need must be the model for pastors and Church members on seeing the wounds of misery and sickness, of unemployment and hunger, of discrimination and marginalization.

In all similar cases, he cannot but see the suffering features of Christ, the Lord, who questions and challenges: Any indifference or passivity, since the authentic disciple of Christ must feel in solidarity with the other who is suffering; The growing gap between rich and poor, shown by privilege and waste contrasting with situations of misery and deprivation; The criteria, mechanisms and structures inspired by principles of economic usefulness, without taking into account the dignity of each person and their rights; The insatiable lust for money and consumption that undoes the social fabric, guided only by egoism and the hidden violence of the law of the strongest.

The word of the Gospel that inspires our meeting introduces us to Jesus who, after having miraculously fed the crowd, orders the leftovers to be collected. Those bits of bread and fish should not be wasted. They were the bread of a needy crowd, but should have been the bread of solidarity, shared with other needy, not the wasted bread of rejected solidarity.

“Blessed are the merciful,” proclaimed the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are they who do not close their hearts to the needs of their brothers and sisters, those who share the little they have with the hungry. Jesus praised the poor widow who gave an offering not from what she had left over, but from what she needed to live.

So often the economically poor are more open to God and others, as they hope for everything from Him; they trust and hope in Him. Give people something to eat; do all possible to give dignity, education, work, home and health care to those who lack all these necessitites. Strive for a more just social order that corrects the inequalities in the distribution of goods. All this will make it possible for each person and family to gain with dignity their daily bread for both body and spirit. CM Translated and abbreviated by Columban Father Peter Woodruff, November 25, 2009.

The full text of the address in Spanish and Italian is available at: http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/speeches/1985/ february/documents/hf_jp-ii_ spe_19850205_poveri_sp.html

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Lent: Season of Hope Hope for New Beginnings

By Sr. Redempta Twomey

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“Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Lk. 19:5). And small, rich Zacchaeus clambered down the tree and “received Him with joy.” It was the beginning of his conversion, a complete turn-about for the wealthy tax collector and well known sinner.

Jesus looked beyond the sin, looked into Zacchaeus’s heart and called forth his better nature. And Zacchaeus, who knew what his fellow Jews thought of him, knew he had cheated them over and over again as he filled up his own coffers, suddenly found himself face to face with this man Jesus who touched into his true self. In that instant Zacchaeus grew taller, his heart expanded and, ignoring the grumbling of the crowd, he committed himself publicly to a new way of living.

It may be that no one ever before had shown Zacchaeus who he really was. We all need to be reminded of our God-given dignity, of the well of goodness that is in each one, waiting to be tapped. So often we focus on the mean and the petty and put ourselves and others

Jesus looked beyond the sin, looked into Zacchaeus’s heart and called forth his better nature. down by our harsh judgments and sour criticisms. Appealing to the good, as Jesus does, helps us to grow as persons. How much easier it is to come down when we know WWW.COLUMBAN.ORG

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that we are valued, that we are respected and loved. Our resistance crumbles and we are able to admit our sins.

A woman whose son was in and out of trouble heard that her neighbor was bad-mouthing him.

One day she met her and said, “Mary, I’ve been told that you are saying bad things about my son.

But I said, ‘No, Mary has has been a good neighbor to me these many years; she is far too good a woman to spread rumors like that.’” The woman was cut to the quick. She had indeed gossiped about the young man; now she saw how damaging her actions had been, how wounding to his mother who refused to accuse or blame her but appealed to her heart. Like Zacchaeus, she responded to the insight, regretting her smallness, her gossip, and becoming a better friend and neighbor in the process.

People seldom change if they are criticized and left with a sense of failure, trapped in their WWW.COLUMBAN.ORG

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own weakness. Who does not need help to break those familiar habits which have become all too destructive, undermining the grace at work in our hearts? When we encourage others to see the best in themselves, not the worst, then change can take place bringing with

to our senses, to listen gently to our heart and repent. This is a season of great hope, hope for new beginnings. With the grace of God old patterns can be broken, new possibilities embraced. “If we acknowledge our sins,” St. John says, “He is faithful and just and will

We all need to be reminded of our God-given dignity, of the well of goodness that is in each one, waiting to be tapped. it a new hope, a new way of being.

When by our words and attitude we help build up another we are helping them become their true selves.

Lent is a good time to look at our values, to re-examine habits we may have fallen into, habits that demean our true selves. Rather than mindlessly drifting along we are given space and time to come

forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing” (1 Jn. 1:9). Then we see more clearly what we have to do and are given the grace to do it.

Zacchaeus’s conversion began when Jesus looked at him. Today Jesus is looking at you. CM

Sr. Redempta Twomey is the assistant editor of The Far East magazine in Navan, Ireland.

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Chicken Wings and Mashed Potatoes A Seminarian Offers Material and Spiritual Sustenance to the Homeless

by Euikyun carlo Jung, columban Seminarian

“Hey, Carlo! How are you?

Come and listen to this music.”

An African-American woman calls my name, and I recognize that she is the one I talked with on the previous Tuesday. I sit at the table, and she gives me her earphones and says, “Listen to this one. But, don’t break it because I have only one set of earphones.” I say, “Okay, I’m not going to break it.” I take her earphones and listen to the music.

“What kind of music is this?” I ask her. Melody doubtfully answers, “Hum…. Maybe it’s rhythm and blues, but I’m not sure.” She is smiling while I am listening to the music. “I think… uh… this is closer to jazz, I guess.” “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” she says. “Do you like music?” When I ask this question, she responds without hesitation.

“Absolutely!”

The exchange above occurred when I was volunteering at the REST shelter for homeless women in Chicago, Illinois. REST (Residents for Emergency Shelter) began in 1979 when a man froze to death on the streets of the area known as Uptown. A group of neighborhood residents made the commitment to provide emergency overnight shelter for the homeless in their area in an effort to avoid further tragedies.

I have gone to the REST women’s shelter once a week since I started the fall semester 14

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at Catholic Theological Union in 2009 when I took the class, Praxis for Cross-Cultural Transformation – Homelessness by Fr. Anthony J. Gittins. When I began volunteering at the shelter in 2009, the programs had grown to include shelter, permanent housing and social service programs. Thousands of people have been placed into housing and tens of thousands have been sheltered since REST began as a response to the tragedy caused by the blizzard of 1979.

I ordinarily went to the shelter with my classmates, and while we were there we usually helped cook things like chicken wings and mashed potatoes for about forty homeless women who used the shelter each night.

In the beginning, going to the shelter and interacting with the women was challenging for me. All of the residents of the shelter were African-American women and U.S. citizens while I was a South Korean seminarian in the U.S. attending university, living in a Columban house and definitely not worrying about where I would sleep at night.

I was a stranger when I went there for the first time. However, as time went by, I opened my mind and heart to the women, and they came to see that I was not a stranger anymore. Moreover, I realized that insofar as I opened my mind and heart to them, they also gradually

opened their minds and hearts to me. At the end of the semester, we could finally call each other friends.

My work at the shelter gave way to some theological questions.

What do homeless women think about God? Where is God in the poor? What are the challenges in working with people who have different cultures and backgrounds?

How have the life experiences of the homeless women shaped their faith, or lack thereof, in God? Insofar as I went to the shelter and spent time with homeless women there, I came to realize that God is not only in their hearts and my heart, but also God is among us.

There are several definitions of homeless people. According to the United States Code, the definition of a homeless individual includes: (1) an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and (2) an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is– (A) a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill); (B) an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or (C) a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.1 Homelessness is a major social issue due to violence, physical and sexual abuse and drug-related crime.

In many cases, homeless people either participate in or are the victims of such violence.

According to the research, on any specific day 32% of the homeless people in Chicago are women.

During the winter, Chicago is very cold. When a blizzard comes and the temperature drops, no one www.columban.org

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is safe to stay outside at night.

Nevertheless, there are many homeless people who do not stay at shelters at night. Instead, they stay on the street, at Chicago Transit Authority stations, Chicago Housing Authority grounds, abandoned buildings and parks.

However, these are not safe places for women to stay at night because of the high risk that they will become victims of violence, particularly sexual violence.

According to many studies about homeless people and the book, Where There’s Hope There’s Life, which was written by Fr. Gittins, there are four major factors in becoming homeless: family, financial, social and health issues.2 In most cases, more than one factor pushes people into becoming homeless, and usually two or more factors coincide that impel people to leave their homes and families.

As described in Fr. Gittins’ book, most interviewees had family issues. Lack of love from family members was often a factor that caused people to leave their homes in the early stages of their lives.

Because of weak kinship, many people leave their families and become homeless. In addition, according to the women, some of them had experiences of watching physical violence by their fathers against their mothers. Sexual abuse by family members is another reason people leave their families.

After the economy collapsed in late 2008, many people lost their jobs. Frequently, many poor people feel as if they have no real option in choosing between a place to live and food. For the extremely poor, one must be sacrificed, either a home or meals. Once the poor people lose their jobs, everything collapses; it is very difficult to return to one’s former life.

There are three other major social issues that contribute to www.columban.org

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homelessness. Some homeless people have criminal records, and there are not many workplaces which are allowed to hire people who have criminal records. For them, there are not many job options and those jobs that are available are often unstable with minimum wages. In addition, lack of education and work skill limits the types of jobs homeless people can obtain.

In addition, there are personal issues at play in homelessness.

Some people do not want to be influenced or controlled by others.

They lack the ability to adapt to society. The family unit is the foundation of any large society. If people have experiences being hurt by their own families, this affects their personality in a negative way.

Addictions are a major factor in people becoming homeless. There are various kinds of addictions, but drug and alcohol addictions are the most common. According to Fr. Gittins’ book, most homeless

women had taken drugs before they became homeless. Most homeless women who were interviewed have a pattern of living homeless. In fact, they may make several cycles into and out of homelessness throughout their lives.

Before I went to the women’s shelter for the first time, I did not think that I had any expectation about homeless women. After many experiences with them, theological reflections with my reflection group, and meetings with my spiritual director, I realize that I was indifferent to homeless people in general because I thought that they were lazy about work and chose to make their lives difficult for themselves. However, after meeting with homeless women at the REST shelter, I have had many opportunities to reflect on myself, my misconceptions and my ministry.

In addition, there is another element that I discovered from my experience which I hope to integrate into my studies at CTU. March/April 2010

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Homeless women are a “muted group”in this country, because they are women and homeless.3 They are the people who are at the margins of this society. They are the ones who are victimized by society because of family, financial, social and health issues. Furthermore, there is not much public money available for these people in order for them to recover from and overcome their difficulties.

Certainly money is necessary for any institution or organization to run its programs, and it is true that many homeless shelters need more money to provide food, develop rehabilitation programs and create jobs for homeless people. However, I am not sure how many people physically go to shelters, soup kitchens, and other rehabilitation institutions or organizations and actually spend one or two hours to talk with homeless people and listen to their stories. At the last reflection group meeting of my class, Fr. Gittins said, “They may not need more money but more people to talk to.” Is it possible that they need someone to be a bridge into society for them?

I like to visit and am comfortable at REST women’s shelter. Now I am familiar with and to the people who stay there overnight. It was a very transformative experience for me to talk with the residents of the shelter. My ministry at the REST women’s shelter is a form of eucharist, because I serve not only material but also spiritual food for those who are in need. I believe that God was in their hearts and my heart, and God was among us when we met in friendship.

Many of us are familiar with the Biblical passage about the Samaritan woman: A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had 16

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Euikyun and a resident at the REST shelter

Fr. Anthony J. Gittins

gone into the town to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” (The woman) said to Him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water” (John 4:7-15).

Ministering with homeless women is challenging for me, particularly because they have a different culture and background.

Jesus caused scandal when He talked to a Samaritan because His love was not limited to one particular gender or race. Fr. Gittins says in his book, “though He [Jesus] is addressing the woman, His offer is for all, for anyone and everyone.” This is what

I should learn from this Gospel passage. Jesus, “the gift of God,” is the ministerial model for me to homeless women.

Moreover, I am called to encounter many different images of God through this society and be encouraged by the Holy Spirit to keep crossing boundaries and reach out to others. In the pain of homelessness, I see a face of God. Furthermore, in the joy of building a relationship with the women at the shelter, I also see another face of God. There is one thing which does not change: God is always there.

Hope is the keyword for homeless women in living each day.

Hope is not abstract. Hope is not far away from homeless women. In their hearts, there is already hope.

Fr. Gittins writes that for homeless women, “Sometimes, there is life without hope, and that equates to the despair that drives people over the edge. So, the maxim ‘where there’s life, there’s hope’ is simply not always true. But where hope survives, life continues.”4 CM Originally from South Korea, Columban seminarian Euikyun Carlo Jung resides in Chicago, Illinois.

1 United Stated Code, Title 42, Section 11302. (accessed December 12, 2009).

2 Anthony J. Gittins. Where There’s Hope There’s Life: Women’s Stories of Homelessness and Survival. (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 2006), 91.

3 Fiona Bowie, The Anthropology of Religion, 2nd ed.

(Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 86.

4 Anthony J. Gittins. Encountering Jesus. (Liguori, MO: Liguori/Triumph, 2002), 112.

www.columban.org

2/9/10 4:39:56 PM

Share a spiritual gift with your loved ones!

Persons enrolled as Associate Members share in the Masses, prayers

and missionary works of the Columban Fathers. Enrollments can express appreciation on the occasion of a birthday, at Christmas or Easter, or as a sign of concern or sympathy on the occasion of death or illness.

You and your loved ones, living and deceased, can be enrolled as Associate Members of the Missionary Society of St. Columban.

An enrollment into the Society is a three-fold gift: †To the person enrolled: He or she shares in the spiritual benefits of the Society. †To the missions: Your offering is used to help our missionaries and the people they serve. †To yourself: “For as long as you did it to one of these...you did it to Me.” Yes, I want to enroll a loved one or family as Associate Member(s) of the Missionary Society of St. Columban! I have enclosed the appropriate offering (see the box to the right of this form).

YOUR NAME ___________________________________________________ ADDRESS ____________________________________________________ CITY ___________________________________STATE____ ZIP__________ PHONE ___________________ EMAIL _______________________________ Dear Father, Please enroll the following person or family: ____________________________________________________________ ❑ Living ❑ Deceased ❑ As a Perpetual Member ❑ As an Associate Member (10 years) Please send the card to the following person: NAME ______________________________________________________ ADDRESS _____________________________________________________ CITY __________________________________ STATE____ ZIP___________ Enclosed is my check for (amount) $________________ Charge to my: ❑ Visa ❑ Mastercard

❑ AmEx

❑ Discover

(amount) $_____________ CARD NUMBER_______________________________ EXP. DATE __________ SIGNATURE ___________________________________________________ Name of person as it appears on the card: ____________________________________________________________ Please mail completed form to: The Columban Fathers P.O. Box 10 St. Columbans, NE 68056

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What do you receive with your Columban Fathers Enrollment?

Each year 2,000 Masses are offered for Associate Members in addition to 100 special Masses at Easter, All Souls Day and Christmas.

Columban Missionaries remember all who make their work possible in their Masses and prayers.

In addition, Associate Members receive the apostolic blessing of the Holy Father.

An offering of $50 will enroll perpetually the living and deceased members of an entire family.

An offering of $25 will enroll perpetually one living or deceased person.

An offering of $10 will enroll one person, living or deceased, as an Associate Member, for ten years.

Please visit us on the web at: WWW.COLUMBAN.ORG

2/9/10 5:02:23 PM

Some Theological Reflections on Land and Food Agriculture and Agribusiness

by Fr. Seán mcDonagh

W

hat do agriculture and agribusiness have to do with the Gospel of Jesus? I believe that Christians ought to be concerned about the abuse of land which is at the heart of petrochemical agriculture. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, land is one of God’s most precious gifts to humankind. The second account of creation in the Book of Genesis tells us that God’s involvement with humans does not end with creating us. God is continually accompanying us in all our endeavors. The text tells us that “the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east and there He put the man He had fashioned” 18

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(Genesis 2:8). God instructed the man to “till and to keep the land” (Genesis 2:15). Scripture scholars tell us that the Hebrew words used here have overtones of service – protection and defending the land from harm.

The biblical tradition of stewardship has emerged from this perspective. Every seven years the land was to remain fallow in order to regain its healthy fertility (Exodus 23: 10-11). The Israelites knew that the current cultivators of the land were God’s tenants.

There were restrictions on what a farmer could do with the land. For example, “the land must not be sold in perpetuity, for the land belongs

to me and to me you are only strangers and guests” (Leviticus 25:23).

It is clear from reading the Gospels that there was a massively inequitable distribution of land at the time of Jesus. This caused enormous suffering and hardship.

Powerful landlords, many of them associated with Herod Antipas, had taken over much of the land just as agribusiness has done in the past five decades. In His own lifetime, Jesus would have seen the livelihood of many independent landowners being undermined.

Some were reduced to tenancy, others worked as day-laborers, while some took to the roads and www.columban.org

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joined bandit groups. Jesus’ critique of the greed and acquisitiveness of the group known as the Herodians was a direct response to their rapacious behavior.

At the same time, the Temple cult was controlled by the Sadducees and Pharisees. These two groups, mainly centered in Jerusalem, grew rich through the tithes and other offerings which the poor gave when they came to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. Jesus’ own mission was directed towards these poor people in Galilee. He set out to inspire them with a vision of a new order grounded in His own experience of the Father’s love and care. A new social order was to be based, not on greed or exploitation, but on God’s unconditional love for all. The scripture scholar, Professor Seán Freyne in his book, Texts, Contexts and Cultures, makes the point that we should not interpret the ministry of Jesus as a religious leader who was able to succinctly present universal truths to a rural audience. Rather, the local situation was always at the heart of Jesus’ teaching, which makes what He had to say even more relevant to our own time. Finally, by linking His mission to the Jubilee Year concept (Luke 4:18 -19), Jesus was making it very clear that He was on the side of the dispossessed:

means, would be restored to the rightful owner after 50 years.

Given that the Gospel was first preached in a very exploitative and unjust socio-economic context, it is amazing that the Churches today have very little to say about how, during the past 50 years, a small elite group has taken over a sizable portion of the lands of the world.

As a result they have more and more control over how our food is produced and processed.

Moving From Agriculture to Agribusiness

In order to understand the current food crisis, it is important to look carefully at the monumental changes that took place in agriculture in the second half of the 20th century. In 1956, an article appeared in the Harvard Business Review which was destined to have a profound impact on how food is produced globally today. The author, John Davis, who later became Secretary for Agriculture during the Eisenhower Administration, wrote, “the only way to solve the so-called farm problem, once and for all, and avoid cumbersome government programs is to progress from agriculture to agribusiness.”1

Sixty years ago, the average family farm was small and pursued a mixed form of agriculture.

These farming families were selfsufficient in food. Surplus produce was traded, usually at the local markets. The market economy was somewhat peripheral to farming, since the community was largely self-sufficient and consumed a minimal amount of fossil fuel energy.

Crusaders for private enterprise felt that this kind of operation was very inefficient. They proposed to bring farm production and the marketing of agricultural products together under a single business umbrella. They argued that, if this were done, the wonders of science and research technology could be harnessed in the interests of food production and processing, and that the consumer would benefit from—as well as have an abundance and variety of—foods. Furthermore food would be very, very cheap.

Because everyone was expected to benefit from this transformation in agriculture, governments and agribusiness corporations pursued these changes with vigor.

Fifty years down the road, this dream of full and plenty with cheap, nutritious food is turning

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for He has anointed me.

He sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor.

Even though the Jubilee idea was never fully implemented in practice, it did hold out the hope that land, which had been appropriated through a variety of www.columban.org

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into a nightmare. Petrochemical agriculture is destroying land and water and polluting the air.

The huge increase in the use of chemicals is causing extensive health and environmental problems. Mono-cropping, or single cropping, is promoting the use of chemicals which undermine biodiversity. While the traditional farmer relied on crop rotation and the presence of friendly bugs, such as ladybugs, to protect the crops, agribusiness farmers have relied on a battery of chemicals. Mixed agriculture has been replaced by specialization in one or two crops.

Animal and human energy has given way to massive petroleum-powered tractors and other machinery.

Fertilizer from animal waste has been replaced by petrochemicals.

This transition has been facilitated by credit from financial corporations. Paying interest on this money and replacing machinery to address each new phase in the farm technology revolution sucked farmers deeper and deeper into debt.

With oil prices predicted to rise for the foreseeable future, this kind of agriculture will become 20

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extraordinarily expensive in the short term. It is doomed in the long-term, because oil is finite and the reserves are rapidly running out.

The result of these corporationfriendly policies has been to push small and medium size farmers off the land. In many developing countries, farmers have been forced off the land, often by transnational corporations which grow single, luxury crops, such as bananas or pineapple for export, making it impossible for local farmers to compete. These subsistence farmers have no option but to

migrate to sprawling slums in cities such as Nairobi, Kenya, Lagos, Nigeria, Manila, Philippines and Mexico City, Mexico. Once they have migrated, they continue to experience poverty and hunger because jobs are difficult to find. As a result, many end up unemployed or underemployed with little money to buy sufficient food. Their situation is now even more critical, as dramatic increases in the price of energy have sent food prices rocketing out of their reach.

The following statistics give some feel for the scale of the transformation of the rural environment. In 1950, only 18% of the population of developing countries lived in cities. By 2000, the figure had jumped to 40%.

Even in developed countries, the number of people involved in agriculture has dropped dramatically. In 1935, there were 6.5 million people involved in agriculture in the United States.

By 1995, the number had dropped to 1.9 million. Today the prison population in the U.S. is larger than the agricultural community.

The same agricultural model has been used in Europe with similar consequences. In 1926, there were 670,000 working on farms in Ireland. By 1991, that figure had dropped to 154,000. The numbers have been declining dramatically ever since while the population of the world continues to increase and with it the number of hungry people. CM Fr. Seรกn McDonagh who lives and works in Ireland has written several books about the challenges facing the environment.

1 Geoffrey Lawrence, 1987, Capitalism and Countryside: The Rural Crisis in Australia, Pluto Press, London and Sydney, page 131.

www.columban.org

2/9/10 6:33:02 PM

Reverence for Rice and Life Rice is Life in Asia

by Fr. barry cairns

T

he United Nations (U.N.) declared 2004 the International Year of Rice with the motto, “Rice is Life.” It is rare for the U.N. to assign an entire year to a single crop. At that time, U.N. spokesperson Jacques Diouf explained that “it is the staple food for more than half the world’s population... it is the key to the world’s food security.” Unlike wheat, small farmers grow 80% of the world’s rice. These farmers and their crops could be the solution to world hunger.

Rice is life – this is the essence of the attitude of the people of Asia towards this grain that keeps them alive. It protects them from hunger and starvation. The concept is difficult to grasp for most of us who have never experienced real hunger. In the East, rice is not just a supplement to the meal as www.columban.org

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a slice of bread was in my home.

Rice is the meal. There are usually supplementary small dishes, but rice is the main component.

If rice is so central to life, it follows that growing and eating this grain inspires an unconscious reverence for its sacredness. It has an aura. What is the basic cause of this aura? To put it simply – hunger.

Every country that depends on rice as its staple food has experienced hunger caused by crop failures, blight, war, or what is called in Japan, “a dry rainy season.” Rice is a crop that is grown in a flooded paddy field. The monsoon rains supply the water. No rain, no rice; no rice, no life. For Japanese people over the age of 60 who have experienced hunger, rice still has this sacredness, usually implicit rather than conscious.

For example, on a parish picnic

my elderly parishioners will lever out the last remaining rice grain from their bowls with chopsticks.

Cultural anthropologists tell us that this is expressing the sacredness of rice. Two years ago I had a change of parish. My housekeeper gave me a rice bowl and chopsticks as a farewell present. This was the most meaningful gift that she, as a Japanese person, could give to me. The sacred aura is shown in the rice bowl itself. Even the cheapest, mass-produced bowl is adorned with an ornate pattern.

The sacredness of life-giving rice begins in the rice paddy. The farmer is close to nature and acknowledges that his crop depends on more than his own human efforts.

The indigenous folk religion of Japan is Shinto. The farmer attends the pre-planting festival of supplication, and the postMarch/April 2010

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harvest festival of thanksgiving, at his local Shinto Shrine. Each year, in a Shinto rite, the Emperor representing his people puts on his long rubber boots to plant rice shoots in the small palace paddy in the middle of Tokyo. At the autumn equinox, he offers the harvest in thanksgiving at the Ise Shinto Shrine, 320 kilometers (about 217.5 miles) southeast of Tokyo. Rice and folk religion are part of Japanese culture.

In Asia, reverence for rice as the principal food is similar to the respect for wheat that existed in Palestine in the time of Jesus. If we understand those deeper meanings, as they exist in Asia today, I believe we can gain a deeper appreciation of the Eucharist. Jesus gave us the bread of life in a country and time when people knew hunger. For Him and the Jewish people, bread was life and hunger a reality.

Today in Asia some liturgical theologians are asking for the host to be made from rice grain. They put forward this argument: bread made from wheat grain is what westerners now eat. In communion 22

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as instituted by Jesus, what aspect is more important – the literal use of wheat or the symbolic meaning of life? If it is life, then rice is life in Asia.

A Japanese theologian, Masao Takenaka wrote on this topic in a book with a provocative title: God is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith. It is a reverent, searching book in which Takenaka says that to a Japanese person rice is the symbol of God’s gift of life. God is life – rice is life – therefore God is rice in that way of thinking.

Wetland rice first came to Japan through China and the Korean peninsula 2,500 years ago. Each farmer today has an average plot of about one hectare (about 2.47 acres). The work depends on good relationships and cooperation between everyone in the farming village.

First, water is allocated to each paddy through narrow channels using small sluiced gates at the high point of each plot. The women plant the seedlings, each plot in turn. All this demands cooperation, consensus as well as suppression

of one’s individual autonomy.

Cultural anthropologists say that these attitudes have influenced the culture of Japan for over two millennia. They are found even today in the monolithic cities far removed from the country rice paddy. So there is more to rice than meets the eye.

I have emphasized the hidden aspects of rice because I feel we westerners know little about them.

Forty-five years ago I learned so much wisdom from the farmers in Wakayama as I stopped my motorbike beside the paddy for a chat. Sadly, the sacred aspect of rice is fading in today’s well fed generation, but it is so deep in the culture that it will arise from the depths if hunger hits again, because in Japan it still holds true: rice is life. CM Fr. Barry Cairns lives and works in Japan.

www.columban.org

2/9/10 6:40:05 PM

To Live With Intent

C

olumban Fr. Michael Sinnott, who was released in November after 32 days of captivity in the Philippines, wrote to the members of the Society asking us to convey his thanks to all our friends and benefactors who kept him in prayer. He wrote: “…I am trying to think where to begin and how I can possibly thank adequately all the people who prayed for me while I was in captivity and worked to help get my release…. I am truly humbled by it all as I don’t feel I did anything that any other Columban would not have done in the same circumstances. My ordeal lasted only a month while many Columbans are working in a constant state of tension which must be much worse.”

Mick’s deep gratitude for the prayers and support that led to his

From the Director

By Fr. Arturo Aguilar release is a reminder to all of us that our work truly is an act of love. “If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that He has given us of His spirit” (1 John 4:11). It is this love for the people of the world, the life of the Church and the opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ in what can be a hostile world that sustains us and urges us to continue.

Our work, sustained

by your prayers and sacrificial gifts, is always His work.

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In late December, I was deeply saddened to read the report from Rome that listed 37 missionaries who were killed while on mission in 2009. The number is the highest in decades and includes a lay person, seminarians, Sisters and priests. The suffering of those who died for Christ last year and in all the years preceding continues to inspire us and remind us that love is a deliberate act that we choose with intention each and every day as we further the work of the Kingdom. The missionaries who died in the past year lived and loved with intent.

In April 2008, Pope Benedict addressed this intentional love in his address to the young people and seminarians at St. Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, New York: “…Contemplating Jesus on the Cross, we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must be moved (Deus Caritas Est, 12). The opportunities to make this journey are abundant….We must respond with a renewed social action that stems from the universal love that knows no bound. In this way, our works of mercy and justice become hope for others.”

Columbans, like many missionaries, often work in dangerous areas. It is in these areas that our work becomes a tangible symbol of the love of Jesus Christ and our respect and love for others. Our work, sustained by your prayers and sacrificial gifts, is always His work. Although we live in an increasingly hostile world, when we love with intent, making deliberate choices to continue to love, we remember that “for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith” (1 John 5:4).

2/9/10 6:39:19 PM

Columban Fathers Po box 10 st. Columbans, ne 68056

NON PROFIT ORG POSTAGE PAID COLUMBAN FATHERS

“Give hope to others and receive income for life.”

With your participation in the Columban Fathers Gift Annuity Program, you become a partner in our mission to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have never heard, or just barely heard, His message.

Other benefits include: • a guaranteed fixed income for life.

• a tax deduction in the year in which the annuity is funded.

• an annuity may reduce your estate taxes at your death.

• there are no legal or administrative costs attached to taking out a gift annuity.

For more information, please contact: Missionary Society of St. Columban Attn.: Planned Giving Dept.

P.O. Box 10 St. Columbans, NE 68056 Toll Free: 877.299.1920 email: plannedgiving@columban.org www.columban.org

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An Invitation Calls for a Response We are but clay, formed and fashioned by the hand of God.

That is to say, we are weak and vulnerable but with God’s grace we are capable of great generosity and idealism.

Is God calling you to spread the good news?

To a life of ministry among those who are less fortunate and more vulnerable than you are?

We invite you to join this new generation by becoming a Columban Father or Columban Sister.

If you are interested in the missionary priesthood, write or call…

If you are interested in becoming a Columban Sister, write or call…

Fr. Bill Morton National Vocation Director Columban Fathers St. Columbans, NE 68056 877/299-1920 Email: vocations@columban.org

Sr. Grace De Leon National Vocation Director Columban Sisters 2500 S. Freemont Avenue #E Alhambra, CA 91803 626/458-1869

Japan + Korea + Peru + Hong Kong + Philippines + Pakistan + Chile + Fiji + Taiwan + North America

2/9/10 6:41:29 PM