Tuesday Jan 30th
AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED
To a Board meeting of ACN at Brompton Oratory. As always, lots to discuss.....at 12 noon, we always stop and say the Angelus. The Oratory's bell rings out across South Kensington in a most reassuring way, and calls us to prayer. It was Sir John Biggs-Davison MP, a member of the ACN Board over twenty years ago, who first got us responding to the bell's call, and we have never omitted the prayer since....and always remember him.....
Each diocese now has a representative of ACN who visits parishes to speak about the work and appeal for funds: the needs just continue to rise as there are projects in the Middle East where the Christian community is so hard-pressed, and the vast new openings in China, and continuing work in the former Soviet Union's distant regions where there are small Catholic communities.....ACN is the only Catholic charity specifically committed to funding the pastoral needs of Catholics who are oppressed and struggling, and its track record goes right back to the bitterest days of Stalin's persecutions in Eastern Europe, and to the ruined cities of Germany and displaced people struggling to make homes in bombed-out cities.....
5 comments:
I always support ACN because it is the only Catholic Charity I know of which is committed to spreading the Faith and supporting those who do so. Most/all of the others are committed to non Faith based social justice. Social justice is good but not at the expense of spreading the Faith.
Jesus Christ made a preferential option for the poor which is why so many, Catholic and Proestant, follow his injunctions. God in Christ chose to be born poor, an unwelcome guest in a stable,and thereby indentified Himself unreservedly with the poor and rejected and shared their condition. If we believe in the Incarnation we should be as zealous for the material advantage of the poor as their spiritual welfare. Ever heard of Blessed Terea of Calcutta?
Jesus Christ made a preferential option for the poor by being born as an unwelcome guest in a stable. God in Christ identified Himself totally with them and shared their life and plight. He understood them through and through. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acqainted with grief. The Holy Family became for a time displaced people. That is why Catholics and Protestants unite in alleviating their lot. We have as much responsibility for providing for their material needs as their spiritual welfare. The Bacon Priest started in this way in the ruins of post-war Europe. It's the way of the saints. By the way, have you heard of Blessed Terasa of Calcutta and the Missionaries of Charity? If not, I suggest you look them up on the web. She and they are as much concered with the body as the soul.
I wrote about this here:
http://juventutem.blogspot.com/2007/01/urgent-appeal.html
Watch this: http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/01/15/priest-discusses-christianity-in-baghdad/ and support the ACN appeal for the Middle East - things are reaching crisis point.
Please make sure you sign this http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Iraqi-Christians/petition for the Iraqi Christians and spread the word - unfortunately the number of signatures is still very small.
Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth. Jesus.
He fills the starving with good things, and sends the rich empty away. Mary.
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