Lenten Practices & Social Justice, part 2

Last week, we introduced the three Catholic disciplines of Lent — prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — and suggested that these be used to make your Lenten journey one that takes you deeper into the Church's social teaching. This week, let's look at prayer.
       St. Thérèse de Lisieux defined prayer as "a surge of the heart." When we are moved to compassion over an injustice, our heart surges toward finding a solution that only God can provide; we are moved to prayer. What should we pray for? We should pray that we are become the tangible presence of God's love and mercy in the world. As the Operation Rice Bowl prayer puts it: "May [God's] generous love for [God's] people be our guide as we reach out to all who live with hunger and poverty."
       This Lent, search your heart and discern what social justice issue you are moved by. Then, plan to pray at least five minutes every day for that issue. If you can't find your own words, here are a two web resources that may be of help: 

• Prayer services for a variety of causes: www.usccb.org/sdwp/prayerresources.shtml 
• Prayers and services for Haiti: http://education.crs.org/

Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. 
   
 

Lenten Practices & Social Justice, part 1

The three Catholic disciplines of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These were given biblically in the gospel reading that we hear each year on Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18). A person can use these three practices for any number of spiritual ends relating to his or her own personal ongoing conversion, but why not use them as a means of deepening one's sense of Catholic social teaching? Pray for changes to unjust structures that keep people in poverty or otherwise oppressed; fast so as to train the body to not over-consume the world's resources; and give alms so that those with less may be raised up.

       For a similar take on this, see the recent editorial published by Our Sunday Visitor at http://bit.ly/d2vQR2.
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins. 
   

"Blessed are you who are poor…"

Today's gospel (Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, year C) needs to be read carefully to get the social justice impact. Look carefully at who are blessed: "…you who are poor"; "…you who are hungry now"; "…you who are now weeping." These aren't the spiritualized "poor in spirit" or those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. These are the down-to-earth beatitudes of Luke's Sermon on the Plain, the "stretch of level ground" where Luke hopes to level the playing field for the people of first century Palestine. He really meant the poor, the hungry, and the weeping! These are people who were considered shamed in an honor/shame culture. He turns their society's notion of status upside down by saying that even those who the world deems shamed, because of their poverty or loss, are nonetheless blessed in God's eyes.
       Note, too, that Jesus was speaking to his own disciples when he preached these beatitudes. Thus, his message was not meant for the world in general but for those who have already chosen to follow him. He expected his disciples to embrace the shamed and give afford them the honor, the blessedness, with which God created them.
       So, for all the followers of Christ, here is a social justice exercise for this week: If Jesus were delivering the Sermon on the Plain today, who do you think he might include as the poor, the hungry, and the weeping? Who do we consider shameful today? How might we better honor them as those blessed by God?
Copyright © 2010, Deacon Carl D. Smith. All rights reserved. Reprint permission granted to parishes for use in Sunday bulletins.