OFFICE FOR SOCIAL MINISTRY
“Now is a good time to recover the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world.” (Pope Francis, World Day of the Poor, November 2020)
This year the message of Pope Francis on the World Day of the Poor is especially compelling. People worldwide are experiencing spikes in the coronavirus pandemic while we enter a holiday season. Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas provide the opportunity to deepen the application of our faith’s conviction that “we need one another” and “have a shared responsibility for others.”
For example, many parishioners of St. Roch Parish, Kahuku, on the North Shore of Oahu are among the hundreds who have been laid off by Turtle Bay Resort as a result of COVID-19. The parish has transformed its limited facilities into a “support center” for people seeking help to secure unemployment payments and other public relief. Other parishes, such as Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Waikane, St. John Vianney in Kailua and Sacred Heart in Waianae have been sharing food from their pantries with St. Roch’s parishioners.
Recently, the head of St. Roch’s parish council participated in a “talk story” zoom session with a member of the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the Office for Social Ministry to explore how parishes can support persons impacted by the pandemic. One suggestion, already happening in some religious and parish communities, is the “friendly calls” ministry which pairs volunteers with someone in need (e.g. homebound kupuna who live alone and have limited interaction) through a phone call once a week just to “check-in,” and have a chat. This connecting and listening with each other in our parishes, especially during the holidays, creates a support network to address the impacts of this pandemic in our communities.
Pope Francis underscores the need to become “close to each other in order to serve, to listen in order to be reconciled, to collaborate in order to build the Kingdom of justice, hope and peace for all.” Connecting and listening with others can help us experience our shared vulnerability and a deeper sense of being neighbors, friends, brothers and sisters in one human family.
This month Christians for Peace in El Salvador gave their Peace Award to two missionaries, Sister of Mercy Betty Campbell and Father Peter Hinde, a Carmelite priest, to honor their 55 years of connecting, listening and accompanying very vulnerable persons throughout the Americas. And for the past 25 years these two missionaries have lived and worked in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Mexico on the U.S. border. Their nourishing solidarity with the marginalized in Latin America has been an inspiring embodiment of the Gospel.
Mercy Sister Betty Campbell and Carmelite Father Peter Hinde in a 2019 photo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (CNS photo/Julie Bourbon, courtesy Sisters of Mercy of the Americas)
Upon receiving the award, they wrote “Another year of Grace! Yes, we face crisis like never before, but crises stimulate Hope, and with Hope come efforts for Truth, Justice and Peace. That effort breeds optimism and even joy. Some saints say that Jesus on the cross, through crying out in desperation, experienced a deep interior Joy at a work accomplished.”
One day after receiving the peace award, Father Peter passed away from COVID-19 at the age of 97.
For more about some social ministries that apply the conviction of the Catholic faith that “we need one another” and “have a shared responsibility for others,” please visit the Office for Social Ministry website officeforsocialministry.com. Taking to heart the words of Pope Francis at the end of his World Day for the Poor message this year is a good way to begin this holiday season journey as one Ohana:
“In this journey of daily encounter with the poor, the Mother of God is ever at our side. More than any other, she is the Mother of the Poor. The Virgin Mary knows well the difficulties and sufferings of the marginalized, for she herself gave birth to the Son of God in a stable. Due to the threat of Herod, she fled to another country with Joseph her spouse and the child Jesus. For several years, the Holy Family lived as refugees. May our prayer to Mary, Mother of the Poor, unite these, her beloved children, with all those who serve them in Christ’s name. And may that prayer enable outstretched hands to become an embrace of shared and rediscovered fraternity. Amen
Mahalo,
Your friends at the Office for Social Ministry
