Got Bread?

Jesus is hungry, and all He wants for Christmas is for us to feed Him.

Last month, during Thanksgiving week, I was approached by three young girls outside of a grocery store and asked if I wanted to donate money to help feed the homeless for Thanksgiving. I was impressed by the young ladies’ zeal to help the hungry, and in exchange for a small contribution, they gave me a wristband that read "End Hunger." I wear the wristband daily now as a reminder of my Christian responsibility to help alleviate the real struggle some less fortunate men and women endure to obtain their daily bread.

While Jesus said in the Gospel "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them" (Mk 14:7), and hunger most likely will never end until His return, Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say that Jesus "hides" in the poorest of the poor, and it was Christ whom she served in them. St. Francis of Assisi said, "The poor don’t need us. We need the poor to show God we love Him."

However, we don’t have to be a mystic to recognize our obligation to perform the corporal works of mercy. All we need is to heed Jesus words in the Gospel: "For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me," (Mt 25:35).

As with everything we do in our daily lives, we should ask Our Lord in prayer how He wants us to feed Him. All it requires is a slight shift in our spiritual awareness in how we relate to the needy in society. Perhaps, a good time to pray about it could be during our family meals. A simple phrase like, "Lord, let us be mindful of those who will go without today," could carry a lot of spiritual weight, and I’m confident the Lord will present us with ample opportunities to help others. The person ringing the bell outside your grocery store at this time of year would take on a whole new meaning. Our maybe, an invitation from a fellow parishioner to help feed the homeless at the shelter this month could be the catalyst to encourage us to look beyond ourselves during the season.

This Christmas time, let’s not forget that God chose to be born hidden in a stable and revealed Himself to the simple shepherds on that holy night. Let’s recognize the hungry Christ hidden in plain sight among us, and feed Him to the best of our capabilities. In that way, we will truly echo the choir of angels when we sing on Christmas Eve, "‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!’" (Lk 2:14).