TALK STORY
“Enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy.” (Pope Francis, “Misericordiae Vultus”)
This Lent, during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis calls us to a deeper experience of God’s mercy. Throughout Hawaii, Catholics are responding to the U.S. bishops’ call to deepen our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving through the Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl project.
More than 30,000 Rice Bowls have been distributed in Hawaii to 64 parishes, 17 Catholic Schools, military chapels for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, and Chuukese communities on at least two islands.
Rice Bowl provides an opportunity to enter “into the heart of the Gospel” by engaging with the vulnerable who “have a special experience of God’s mercy.” For example, during this month’s Ohana Mass for families with disabled persons, families received special Rice Bowl materials in their bulletins. After the Gospel, they watched a 30-second Rice Bowl video and then participated in a short skit demonstrating how God’s mercy is manifested in stories of hope about families with severe health challenges in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
One of the Lenten Rice Bowl stories of hope is about Hongkham who lives in Laos with her spouse and five boys. When her farmer husband got sick, the family had to sell most of what they owned — including their land — to pay for medicine. Soon the family faced devastating hunger and deteriorating health.
Then Hongkham began working as a cook at a Rice Bowl-supported school literacy and hunger program at her children’s school, which provides free school lunches for students, literacy training for teachers and principals, and nutrition training for all. Hongkham used that training in the school kitchen and when she cooks for her family at home. She also receives a monthly ration of food to take home, which helps her family grow and thrive.
Hongkham says that before the program started, students would go home and often wouldn’t return for afternoon classes. Now they return to school after morning classes to receive their free nutritious meal and learn to read and write. Hongkham says she has experienced real improvement in her own children’s health and in their studies. This is one way Rice Bowl makes a positive, lasting difference in the lives of the poor — “a special experience of God’s mercy.”
You can find more about Hongkham and other stories of hope at www.crsricebowl.org. For more about how Rice Bowl activities are helping deepen our Lenten journey experience of God’s mercy in Hawaii, please go to the special Rice Bowl page on our diocesan website, www.catholichawaii.org/2016ricebowl.
Students from Chaminade University will be sharing Rice Bowl stories of hope with other youth and young adults during leadership retreats on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. They will also be connecting Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving to what Pope Francis says in his encyclical “Laudato Si’.”
Please go to these websites and find out how during Lent you can “enter in the heart of the Gospel” and “have an experience of God’s mercy” through participating in Rice Bowl.
Mahalo!
Your friends at the Office for Social Ministry
