May’s Intention:
That Everyone Might Have Food
Let us pray that everyone, from large producers to small consumers, be committed to avoid wasting food, and to ensure that everyone has access to quality food.
Lord of creation,
You gave us the fertile earth and, with it, our daily bread,
as a sign of Your love and providence.
Today we recognize with sorrow
that millions of brothers and sisters continue to suffer from hunger,
while so many goods are wasted at our tables.
Awaken in us a new awareness:
that we learn to thank for every food,
to consume simply,
to share with joy,
and to care for the fruits of the earth as a gift from You,
destined for all, not just a few.
Good Father,
make us capable of transforming the logic of selfish consumption
into a culture of solidarity.
May our communities promote concrete gestures:
awareness campaigns, food banks,
and a sober and responsible lifestyle.
You who sent us Your beloved Son Jesus,
broken bread for the life of the world,
give us a new heart, hungry for justice and thirsty for fraternity.
May no one be excluded from the common table,
and may Your Spirit teach us to see bread
not as an object of consumption,
but as a sign of communion and care.
Amen.
Table Fellowship
A Reflection by Fr. Tony Burrascano, O.S.A.
What was the ministry of Jesus? Some would say it was table fellowship.
Jesus spent a lot of time eating. He ate with sinners, such as the tax collector Matthew. He fed the 5,000. It was while he was eating that Mary Magdalene, a woman of ill repute, washed and dried his feet. It was at the Passover meal, the Last Supper, that Jesus gave us his total commitment of love for all time as he ate his last meal with his disciples and gave us the Eucharist. Even at his birth, eating and feeding were represented by Mary placing him in a manger, the place where animals were fed and nourished. Feeding and the nourishment of food was a part of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Our families celebrate important days in our lives around food. Whether it is Christmas, Thanksgiving, a wedding, a funeral, or just our own families gathered together, we eat. Each holiday even has its own particular menu. Food is an important part of our socialization.
We often presume that everyone here in America has sufficient food, but that is not and has never been the case. As we hear of the increasing challenges of our economy, we should become more aware of the many, many people with food insufficiencies. We hear how our economically challenged neighbors don’t have enough food, and how more and more people are relying on food banks to keep their families fed.
A lack of food in the poorest countries around the world has been and continues to be a problem as well. Our Augustinian missionaries in Peru have long served among those in need of nourishment by sponsoring food kitchens for those in deep poverty.
Is there an easy answer to the shortage of and unequal distribution of food from the richest to the poorest nations? The answer is living our faith. The Scriptures, popes, and Church teachings have always called us to not only be aware of people in need but to actively respond to it. This can be through our personal dedication to the needs of others to challenging – no, demanding – that governments respond to the needs of the hungry in our nation and in poor nations throughout the world.
The lack of sharing of sufficient and quality food to the poorest nations and people is not new. We must ask ourselves: when will we actively contribute to the eradication of this problem? It is not enough just to know about it; our faith challenges us to do something about it.
