February 3, 2012 Bill Mulcahy Bill's previous articles
We don't have to look very far to realise that there is
great need and injustice in our world.
Print media, electronic media portrays and reports it.
Our own eyes can see it too: if we allow ourselves.
Just think about these points for a moment:
•
nearly half the world's population live on less than $2 a
day
•
925 million people go hungry every day (13.1% of world’s
population or 1 in every 7 person).
•
there are an estimated 15 million children who have lost
one, or both their parents to AIDS.
I remember meeting so many orphaned children when I visited
Uganda in 2009.
AIDS in that country alone has affected almost a
generation of people.
"Blessed is he who considers the poor...." (begins
Psalm 41)
The question we should ask of ourselves is this: "Do
we?"
What can we do?
The list is endless; the possibilities are limitless.
But, at the core of following Jesus, and indeed Vatican 2, is compassion
for the poor.
It is at the heart of the Gospel.
We need to see the world through God's eyes..... and He looks upon the poor with
priority.
This
is what we can do:
•
Become Educated About World Poverty- Wanting to help is great,
but
it is critical we become educated about the issue,
read, research, make contacts, be informed, and you also increase our confidence
and will/desire to do things.
•
Persuade Others to Join You (this is the hardest thing)
•
Evangelise
I take you back to a previous posting where I compared Pity
vs Compassion.
Compassion is when we see the starving children as a personal problem that we
need to do something about,
rather than as an 'issue'.
Here's a few more facts to ponder: (FAO figures)
·
50 000 people die of poverty-related causes each day
·
of this total, 34 000 are children under 5 years of age
These numbers seem to go unnoticed and mean little so to do
justice to the number that die daily, I will use these analogies:
·
Imagine every 2 minutes a school bus fully loaded with
children crashing and instantly killing all on board............
·
Imagine 17 times the number of lives lost in the 9/11
tragedy each day of the year........
·
Imagine that during the 1 hour at Mass this morning, 2 800
people died due to a poverty-related cause......
We may not know these people, but it doesn't change the
fact that they are dying.
And claiming ignorance doesn't wash. We are called to help...... Can you hear
the call in your heart!!!!
“What would happen if everyone cared?”