'You Give Them Something to Eat'

By Sister Jane Remson, O.Carm

The story of the loaves and fishes in Mark’s gospel is a good example of the challenges we face in providing food for the hungry.

You know the story. Thousands of people were listening to Jesus preach and it was getting late. The disciples encouraged Jesus to dismiss the crowd saying, “let them go to their homes so they can get something to eat.” Instead of dismissing the crowd Jesus said to his disciples “You give them something to eat.” The disciples were astonished by his words and said to Jesus, “With what? We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people.” Jesus was quiet and let the disciple figure out what to do to provide enough food for the crowd. The same is true for us. We were also told “You give them something to eat.”

It’s our turn to figure out how to meet the challenges and our responsibility to provide food for the hungry. In the end Jesus multiplied the efforts of the disciples so that all had enough to eat and several baskets of food were left over.

We can expect the same for our efforts. We can provide more than enough food for hungry people by creating a “circle of protection” around our nation’s basic food programs that provide food for the hungry in the USA and around the world. We know that 95% of the cost of providing food is from government sources and only 5% is from other sources, such as Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, etc. We must contribute to the missionary work of our churches and support our local food banks, but we cannot neglect our responsibility as citizens to lobby our nation’s decision makers for our government’s role to feed the hungry.

“You Give Them Something To Eat.” – Mark 6:34-44

Let your members of Congress know You expect government to honor its responsibility to fund basic programs that provide food for hungry people at home and abroad. Sequestration is not the way to – “give them something to eat.” In addition to the 1 million jobs lost and cuts to vital programs, the sequester – scheduled to begin on March 1, 2013 - would cut 600,000 women, infants and children from WIC and 70,000 children from Head Start.

 (From Volume 2, #7 (2013) of the Bread for the World New Orleans newsletter.  Sister Jane Remson is director of New Orleans Bread for the World)

New Orleans Hunger Walk
Bread for the World New Orleans will hold its 32nd Annual Hunger Walk on Saturday, March 2. 2013.  The 4-mile Walk begins at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church yard, 4640 Canal St. and proceeds up Canal St. to Claiborne Ave. The Walk turns on Claiborne Ave. and continues down Canal St. returning to St. Anthony of Padua Church yard. 

Registration begins at 8:00 am
Prayer at 9:00 am
Walk at 9:30 am
Adult - $15 ~ Student - $12 ~ Child - $7 (7 and under)
Fee includes your t-shirt

If you want to participate or donate money, contact Sister Jane Remson,  jfremson@loyno.edu, (504) 458-3029