The Candidates Too

Most of the 80-plus letters written at our Offering of Letters at St. John XXIII Catholic Community on the weekend of July 7-8 were directed to our congressional representatives in Washington. More than one-third of those letters went to Sen. Martin Heinrich, while a dozen or so were addressed to Sen Tom Udall, while the count for Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham was in the teens.  A visitor to our parish from California wrote a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Rep. Lujan Grisham had been the popular choice in our Offerings of Letters the past three years. Many letter-writers, aware that she has announced her decision to step down from her post in the U.S. House of Representatives to run for governor of New Mexico, wrote fewer letters to her.  However, organizers of our Offering of Letters decided to give parishioners the opportunity to write to the three individuals seeking to replace Lujan Grisham in the House: Democrat Deb Haaland, Republican Janice Arnold-Jones and Libertarian Lloyd Princeton.

Our sample letters to the candidates had slightly different wording than those to sitting members of Congress.  Our messages mentioned the high rate of child hunger and overall food insecurity in New Mexico and suggested that one way to address this situation was to protect funding for vital nutrition programs like SNAP, WIC and tax credits for low-income voters.

My guess is that the candidates are not necessarily receiving letters from would-be constituents at this point in the campaign. Our OL offered the opportunity to those who wanted to send the message to do so.  By this time next year, Haaland, Arnold-Jones or Princeton will be representing the New Mexico First District, and we hope that our letters will plant a seed to ensure that addressing hunger remains on the radar of our new elected official.

Here are additional photos from our Offering of Letters.

Our pastor, Father Ark Biczak

Judy Traeger, a JustFaith facilitator

A 'Foodraiser' to Benefit a Parish Pantry and Rio Grande Food Project

Terry and Jeannette Dunbar have known Ari Herring since she was a youth.That close relationship led to a conversation on a common interest: feeding the hungry in our community.

Ari happens to be the director of Rio Grande Food Project, and Jeanette is a member of the Social Concerns Ministry at St. John XXIII Catholic Community.  So, Terry, Jeannette and Ari decided to host a joint fundraiser that will benefit both the RGFP and the Food Pantry at St. John XXIII. 

Here are details for the event, which they called a "Foodraiser," which will be held at:

The Home of Terry and Jeannette Dunbar
13600 Cedarbrook Ave NE (map)
Saturday, May 19. 
6:00 P.M.

Come share food and beverages and bid on Silent Auction items.

Donate one or more of the following to gain admission to the foodraiser. 1)$20  2) non-perishable food items, 3) a silent auction item

If you choose option 1, you can pay in advance (and RSVP) via this site 

Donations to St. John XXIII Pantry

The food pantry at St. John XXIII is often in need of food items, particularly outside the traditional Thanksgiving-Christmas donation period. Parishioners are generous, but they have difficulty stocking the pantry this time of year. Many individuals feel that there is no hunger in this part of Albuquerque (near the corner of Montgomery and Tramway), but this could not be further from the truth. There are many apartments and many are government subsidized housing in the area.

Ari Herring at End Hunger Summit 2017

The Rio Grande Food Project is  the largest food pantry on Albuquerque’s west side, serving an average of 4,260 kids, adults, and seniors every month. The organization sources locally grown, donated, rescued, and purchased foods to provide groceries to households facing financial challenge while also connecting people to community resources and opportunities to maximize limited budgets and reduce and prevent food-insecurity. The Food Project also sees a large influx of clients throughout the summer months.

Congregation Albert Event to Discuss Hunger in New Mexico

How big of a problem is hunger in New Mexico? What are the impacts on residents of our state? What is being done to fight hunger in New Mexico?

These are questions that Lisa Spencer of The Storehouse will attempt to answer at a brunch sponsored by the Congregation Albert Brotherhood.

The public is invited to attend the event on Sunday, February 18, at 10:00 A.M., at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana Blvd. NE (map). 

The cost is $12 for members of the Brotherhood/Sisterhood and $14 for everyone else. RSVP is requested.  Please call 883-1818 ext. 3203 or send an e-mail message to brotherhood@congregationalbert.org  For more information, contact Gordon Bronitsky (505) 238-3739, jbartonp@comcast.net

Workshop to Examine Importance of SNAP, WIC to New Mexicans

The 2018 Offering of Letters, entitled For Such a Time as This, urges people of faith and conscience to raise our collective voices to urge Congress to invest in and protect key programs that help improve the lives of men, women, and children facing hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world. 
Our annual Offering of Letters workshop in Albuquerque will focus on the importance of a couple of programs that are crucial to low-income residents of New Mexico: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

Please join us on Saturday, March 17, 9:30 a.m. until 12:00 Noon at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1100 Indian School Rd. NE (map)

A handful of special guests have graciously agreed to put together brief presentations to help us understand why it is important to keep these crucial programs funded.

Sovereign Hager: Supervising attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. Her work focuses on improving access to food and cash assistance, Medicaid and childcare assitance for New Mexico families. Two other attorneys work on her benefits team at the NMCLP.   (Photo: New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty)

Sarah Lucero. Program specialist at the New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association.  Her focus is on the development, promotion and support for the Double Up Food Bucks program in our state.  The program allows recipients of SNAP benefits to obtain more fruits and vegetables when you spend your SNAP EBT Card dollars at participating farmers’ markets, (Photo: New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association)

Jason Riggs: Manages the SNAP Outreach Program at Roadrunner Food Bank. The program works to reduce some of the barriers that prevent hungry people in New Mexico from participating in this important program. By providing SNAP application assistance and education at food distribution locations, more New Mexicans can become informed about their potential eligibility and learn important information about how they can obtain benefits. New Mexico has an 81% participation rate among eligible SNAP households. There are many barriers that prohibit the remaining eligible 19% from successfully participating in the program.  They are often are not informed about the program and have not yet applied to receive them.

 *A fourth presenter might join us to speak about the importance of the nutrition education component of the SNAP program.  Stay tuned for updates

RSVP via Facebook Event

Here is more information about the Offering of Letters

What is the 2018 Offering of Letters About? 
Every day, millions of people in the United States and around the world feed and support their families in part because of lifesaving programs funded by our government. We are making progress toward the end of hunger, but we live in challenging times. Our gains are increasingly vulnerable due to the actions and inactions of governing officials.   Printable Overview

What is Our Specific Ask to Congress? 
 In 2018, we are raising our collective voice to ask Congress to invest in and protect key programs that help improve the lives of men, women, and children facing hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world. Sample Letter (Keep checking the Bread for the World website for updates)

A Couple of Questions
When is the best time to write Congress about hunger and poverty issues? Personal letters and emails to Congress are always welcome and effective. Congress develops budget and spending bills throughout the year with final resolution occurring sometime in the fall. (Keep checking the Bread for the World website for updates)

What is the budget process and timeline? 
The budget process begins when the president’s budget proposal is submitted to Congress in February. House and Senate Budget Committees begin work on a budget resolution in March, which sets yearly spending levels and longer-term priorities. House and Senate Appropriations Committees begin work on annual spending bills in the spring with an expectation of approving 12 spending bills by early fall. If Congress cannot pass necessary spending bills by Sept. 30 (the end of the fiscal year), a continuing resolution needs to be approved to keep the government temporarily funded until a full agreement can be reached.  See Full Questions and Answers document

We Pray 
Time and time again, you have called your people to care for those who are hungry and living in the margins. You have given us a world of abundance and we confess that we have not been good stewards and shared justly. We give thanks for the freedom and power you give us to resist this injustice. By writing these letters to Congress today, we use that power in a small way so that we might answer your call to feed those who are struggling with hunger. 
See Prayers and Litany for Offering of Letters   and Biblical Reflection

Here is the link to the full resources for the 2018 Offering of Letters

'We Pray that Their Hearts be Moved to Act According to Your Will'

Judy Traeger, Jim Lozito, Father Charles, Carlos Navarro, Molly Lannon

On Sunday, July 23, we blessed the more than 120 letters that parishioners at St. John XXIII Catholic Community wrote the previous weekend during our Offering of Letters. Sixty one paper plate messages that children wrote in Vacation Bible School were also blessed.

The blessing took place both at the 9:00 a.m. Mass (where our pastor Rev. Ark Biczak presided) and at the 11:30 a.m. Mass (where sacramental assistant Rev. Charles Dougherty, CP, presided).

The letters were blessed with the special prayer that Bread for the World wrote for this year's Offering of Letters, is focused on urging members of Congress to make funding decisions that put our country and the world on track toward ending hunger.

Holy God, we give thanks that all good things come from you. You created us in your image, and invite us to share our love for you with one another. In a world where too many children go without food and where communities are torn apart by inequality and violence, we give thanks that your power is ever lasting. We pray that you will empower us to do our part to end hunger—as individuals, as communities, and even as elected officials. We pray for members of Congress who will receive letters asking them to make funding decisions that put us on track toward ending hunger by 2030. We pray that their hearts will be moved to act in accordance with your will. Help us to speak out when we see injustice, to answer the call when there is need, to be a blessing for the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Dear Congress: Please Support Food for Kids (and Everyone Else)

Several weeks before parishioners at St. John XXIII Catholic Community sat down to write more than 110 letters to Congress to protect vital anti-hunger programs, the children in Vacation Bible School held their own "Offering of Letters." The young people wrote a simple message on paper plates: "Support Food for Kids."

The 61 messages from the children will be added to the letters that our parish is sending to Congress asking that funding be protected for important programs, including nutrition for women and children, food assistance for low-income families, tax-credits for workers and international assistance for poor countries around the world. The asks are part of Bread for the World's 2017 Offering of Letters: Doing Our Part to End Hunger.

By protecting funding for the programs we seek to stay on track to do our part and work with the global community towards the goal of ending hunger 2030. This Zero Hunger goal is part of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Our letters on July 15 and 16 were written mostly to Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, although a handful of messages also went to Rep. Steve Pearce and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan.

Letter writers were encouraged to add their own experiences. Among those writing letters were a doctor who works at a low-income clinic who sees a need to boost funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a staff person from Catholic Relief Services  CRS who works in Ethiopia (and who was on home leave), and our pastor, who is the CRS representative for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. 

The 110 letters were all handwritten or written at home at a computer and brought to the parish on the weekend of the OL. Yes, it's Totally Okay to type your letters or even send your letters by e-mail as long as the message is in your own words and your home address is included.

We will be adding more to the totals, as those who took letters to write at home are starting to send e-mails confirming that they did write the letters  Still, the overwhelming number of our letters were handwritten there on site.

And it didn't hurt that our pulpit announcement mentioned that the letters would be added to the messages from the children when we send them to Congress. All of the paper plate messages and letters that were written on site will be blessed at the 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 Masses on Sunday, July 23.

Three Offerings of Letters Scheduled this Summer in #ABQ

At Sen. Tom Udall's Albuquerque office

As of June 11, almost 1,100 letters had been written to Congress from nine congregations, one school and two organizations urging Congress to make funding decisions that put our country and the world on track to ending hunger by 2030.

The letters, written as part of Bread for the World's 2017 Offering of Letters,urged Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Rep. Steve Pearce and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan urging them to ensure that Congress invests in key programs that have a proven track record and improve the lives of hungry men, women, and children. In conjunction with this year's OLs, local advocates organized a visit to the Albuquerque offices of our Congressional delegation on June 16, coinciding with Bread for the World's national Lobby Day. We delivered the letters written at St. Michael and All Angels to the local offices.

Three other congregations are scheduled to hold Offerings of Letters in the summer months: Central United Methodist Church, St. John XXIII Catholic Community and Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Below is the poster that Mellie Myer prepared for parishioners at St. John XXIII. The parish is coordinating the Offering of Letters with an effort to stock the parish's food pantry, thus illustrating the importance of both advocacy and direct service in the effort to address hunger.

Children Speak Out on Hunger

More often than not, an Offerings of Letters involves primarily members of our own congregations, whether the  messages are written on site or from the comfort of our own homes. On those times when the Offering of Letters extends beyond the "walls" of our own churches, the results are great. Two years ago, an Offering of Letters at St. John XXIII Catholic Community inspired a parishioner to organize co-workers at Molina Health Care to write more than 80 letters to Congress to save nutrition programs.

The extended Offering of Letters has been a tradition at Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Church in Albuquerque, thanks to Ellen Buelow and her team. In 2016, parishioners who participated in that year's Offering of Letters were inspired to bring the letter-writing activity to South Valley Preparatory School and Holy Ghost School.  This year, the Offering of Letters at Holy Rosary on March 18-19, again inspired Mary Ann Holland, a retired teacher, to bring the Offering of Letters to Holy Ghost School. The students produced more than 120 letters to Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Some messages were a fairly general request to ensure that people were fed. Others urged to address the issues that affect the homeless community. One letter specifically asked for help for Africa, with a specific mention of Sudan.  Below are samples of some of the messages that the Holy Ghost students wrote to Congress this year.

An Offering of Letters, Step by Step

Bread for the World provides a useful set of resources to individual members and congregations with each year's Offering of Letters.  One resource that is always found in the resource packet is called  Conducting an Offering of Letters. "Whether you are new to letter-writing or are experienced in organizing people to speak out to our leaders in Washington, this 'how-to' section of the toolkit will help you prepare for an Offering of Letters," says Bread for the World. (Note: There are great tips for incorporating social media into a letter-writing campaign)

 All Saints Lutheran Church in Albuquerque would like to share the three-step process that organizers used to produce 66 letters to our congressional delegation for this year's campaign, entitled Doing Our Part to End Hunger.

Step 1 Promoting Your Event
Bread for the World: If a pulpit announcement is part of the worship service, it should reflect the experience of worship—encouraging faith and understanding of God’s message. Don’t just tell worshippers the details of the Offering of Letters. Tell them why this is important, grounding your words in your faith experience. Ultimately, you best know your faith community and what speaks to their hearts,

Every year, Lucretia Tippit and her organizing team write a skit to introduce the Offering of Letters to the congregation via a reader's theater.  Below is an excerpt, and here is the link to the full script for this year.

Lillian Edwards and Patty Fertig 

A: You know today is the day we are asked to write letters to our congressional representatives and senators.
B: (sigh) I know. I write every year. But sometimes I wonder if it does any good. People seem to get poorer and poorer and hungrier and hungrier.
A: Well. Not really. It seems that way, but for the first time since the 2007 recession, U.S. poverty and food insecurity have actually declined. But you’re right, especially here in New Mexico the poverty rate is still too high. We are the second worst state for childhood hunger and the overall hunger rate is 17.2%--that translates to 358, 770 people.
B: I can believe it. My neighbor is a single mother with 2 children. She works 2 jobs, but still doesn’t earn enough to put food on the table plus pay her rent and utilities. She gets food stamps and is eligible for WIC, but the money never seems to stretch to the end of the month. I help her whenever I can, but she doesn’t like to accept hand-outs. Sometimes I insist or let her know where a food bank is that I hear about

Gwenyeth Lewis, Pat Phaklides, George Holly, Lucy Archamboult

Step 2 Writing the Letters
Bread for the World: Identify a space for participants to write letters or send emails. Have available sample letters, paper, envelopes, pens, stamps, and names and addresses of members of Congress

All Saints Lutheran Church set up several tables for members of the congregation to write letters.  Church members wrote 23 letters to Sen. Tom Udall, 16 letters to Sen. Martin Heinrich, 10 letters to Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, 13 letters to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan and four letters to Rep. Steve Pearce.

Sunday School Class

Step 3  Blessing the Letters
Bread for the World: Gather the letters and bless them, and then thank people for participating. Count the total letters for each member of Congress, and then mail the individual letters to Capitol Hill.

On the Sunday after the actual Offering of Letters, the Sunday school children processed with the letters to the altar. Rev. Kristin Schultz then said a blessing over the letters before they were sent on to Congress. 

(Photos courtesy of Karen Hyde)

How Does an OL Message Get to the Office of Your Congressperson?

Once the organizers of your Offering of Letters collect all the messages to your congressional representatives, how do they get them to their offices?  Okay some of these messages travel by cyberspace. The remaining letters get a stamp on the upper right-hand corner and are placed in a mail box.  In some instances, the letters are put in a big envelope and sent out that way.

So how did Terri Christiansen and Sara Love at St. Timothy's Lutheran Church in Albuquerque handle their delivery of the 67 letters that members of the church wrote? They made an appointment with each of the local offices of our congressional representatives and took the letters directly to those offices. The letters would then be forwarded to Washington by the local office. This is another way to have a conversation with an aide about the topic of this year's campaign, Doing Our Part to End Hunger.

Here is what Sara Love posted: 

Members of your Advocacy Team - Terri & Sara - delivered your Bread For The World Offering of Letters to the offices of Senator Martin Heinrich, Senator Tom Udall, and Representative Michelle Lujan Grisham! Terri & Sara met with their staff, got some great resources, and spread the word of all the wonderful ways St. Tim's is in our community

Writing Letters in the Church Hall and at an Awards Ceremony

Photo courtesy of  Ellen Buelow

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Community in Albuquerque had its Offering of Letters on the weekend of March 18-19. Two other churches in New Mexico also organized letter-writing on that weekend, joining three other churches that have scheduled their Offering of Letters as of the end of March.

Parishioners at Holy Rosary participated actively in writing letters to Congress this year, as they have in many years past.

Bread for the World's 2017 Offering of Letters is focused on urging members of Congress to make funding decisions that put our country and the world on track toward ending hunger. We want Congress to fund and protect programs such as SNAP, WIC, international poverty focused development assistance, and tax credits for low-income workers.

Ellen Buelow, who organized the Offering of Letters at Holy Rosary, took some of the sample letters that she used at her parish to a Bread for the World display table at the annual Lumen awards ceremony sponsored by the Dominican Ecclesial Institute (D+E+I) the following Sunday. The display table included materials from the OL entitled Doing Our Part to End Hunger (download the guide). A few more letters resulted from this effort.

Highlighting the work of Bread
The D+E+I event provided the opportunity for a reunion.  Former Bread board member Ann Sims attended the ceremony. Ann served on the board in the 2010s. The picture to the left shows Ann (to my left) and Sue Slankard (to my right). The D+E+I honored me with the Lumen Ecclesaie award, providing me the opportunity to speak about the great work of Bread for the World over the past several decades.

The Interfaith Hunger Coalition also set up a display table at the conference, and receiving the award gave me the opportunity to speak about how a group of people of faith came together to provide a space for the faith community to discuss ways to work together to address hunger and poverty in New Mexico.

Pictured at left are two members of our steering committee, Sarah Rahman Muhammad from the Islamic Center of New Mexico and Brenda Sinfield from First Presbyterian Church.

A Script to Encourage Congregants to Write Letters (2017 Version)

All Saints Lutheran Church in Albuquerque is scheduled to hold its Offering of Letters on Sunday, May 7. The congregation is one of six churches that had scheduled a letter-writing Sunday as of the end of March.

Bread for the World's 2017 Offering of Letters is focused on urging members of Congress to make funding decisions that put our country and the world on track toward ending hunger. We want Congress to fund and protect programs such as SNAP, WIC, international poverty focused development assistance, and tax credits for low-income workers.

Every year, Lucretia Tippit and her organizing team use a handy tool to introduce the Offering of Letters to the congregation: reader's theater.  Last year's script produced 84 letters to Congress. 

Lucretia and her team are hoping for similar results with this year's script.

A: You know today is the day we are asked to write letters to our congressional representatives and senators.
B: (sigh) I know. I write every year. But sometimes I wonder if it does any good. People seem to get poorer and poorer and hungrier and hungrier.
A: Well. Not really. It seems that way, but for the first time since the 2007 recession, U.S. poverty and food insecurity have actually declined. But you’re right, especially here in New Mexico the poverty rate is still too high. We are the second worst state for childhood hunger and the overall hunger rate is 17.2%--that translates to 358, 770 people.
B: I can believe it. My neighbor is a single mother with 2 children. She works 2 jobs, but still doesn’t earn enough to put food on the table plus pay her rent and utilities. She gets food stamps and is eligible for WIC, but the money never seems to stretch to the end of the month. I help her whenever I can, but she doesn’t like to accept hand-outs. Sometimes I insist or let her know where a food bank is that I hear about.

Lucretia Tippit (right) attended the 2017 OL workshop

A: That’s understandable What she needs is a hand up. That’s why we need to write to Congress and urge them to fight to preserve the anti- hunger programs like SNAP, WIC and EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT.
B: And I know military families and veterans are suffering also. Not only are they suffering unemployment but many of them are getting poor health care. 
A: Yes, Senator Heinrich is on the committee for veterans and the military, so you can mention that when you write him.
B: But with the cutbacks that President Trump and the Republicans are considering, is there any hope that these programs will be saved? And what about hunger and poverty world-wide? I hear programs that have been successful globally are on the chopping block also.
A That’s why we have to write our letters. Remember, international assistance for hunger and poverty makes up less than 1% of our national budget. A budget is a moral document as well as a financial one. Our federal budget should be measured on how it treats the most vulnerable people among us.
B: But do you think we can ever end hunger and poverty by the year 2030? Won’t the poor always be with us?

A: We’ve made great strides already. Since 1990, global hunger has decreased by nearly half. Pope Francis, Bill Gates and the World Bank have presented convincing evidence that ending hunger and extreme poverty by 2030 is within reach and most U.S. pastors agree. It’s a matter of cooperation between churches, non-governmental organizations plus government programs. The U.S. needs to do its part and maintain, not cut the programs that have been so successful around the world.
B: (sigh)How many letters do I have to write? Frankly, I don’t understand all these programs and their initials. What’s the “down to the nitty gritty” message I need to include?

Children helped bless letters written in 2016

A: We’d like you to write at least 2 letters—one to your representative and 1 to a senator. All the instructions and materials are on the tables in Fellowship Hall. And there is a sample letter. We are asking Congress to make funding decisions that put us on track to end hunger by 2030.
B: I hate to admit it, but my hand gets tired writing. Can I take the information home with me and type out a letter? What about e-mailing? That’d be even easier.
A: Hand written letters are still the most effective, especially when they are delivered in bulk. But yes, you can type them and bring them back next Sunday when we dedicate the letters. Also, this year you can also e-mail. I can give you more information on that after the service. There is a sample letter in your bulletin today that you can use to help you at home.
B: Well you made it pretty easy. I’ll definitely participate. It is extremely important that Congress gets the message. I can see that.

'Blessed Are Those Who See God in Every Person'

Our Gospel of love and grace is to be lived together for all people 
-The Rev. Jim Gonia 
  
Ecumenical and interfaith dialogue is not frosting on the cake.  It is at the core of our values.
-The Most Rev. John C. Wester
 

How appropriate that the Gospel reading for Sunday, January 29, was Matthew 5:1-12, also known as the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus speaks about the virtues of humility, mercy, peace, righteousness and faithfulness.

On this Sunday, people around the country, including Albuquerque, people of faith and conscience came together to protest the new extremely punitive rules issued by the new U.S. administration against immigrants and refugees (the "anti-Beatitudes").

Also on this day, Catholics and Lutherans and people from other Christian denominations gathered at St. Luke Lutheran Church in Albuquerque to celebrate unity and pray and sing together about our common values and the priority to care for the poor and the marginalized.

The  Most Rev. John C. Wester from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and Bishop Jim Gonia from the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) presided over this service. Bishop Gonia mentioned Pope Francis' visit to Malmo, Sweden, on All Saints Day 2016, where he met with ELCA leaders to celebrate another step in the coming together of the two traditions.. During the trip, the pontiff reflected on the Beatitudes for our contemporary world. We take these Beatitudes to heart in our ongoing efforts to fight against hunger and poverty and for the rights of the marginalized.

Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart.

Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness.

Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him.  

Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home.

 Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others.
 
Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.

OL 2016: Blessing our Letters to Congress with Holy Water

Rev. Stephen Hickman, a retired priest from the Diocese of Richmond who lives in Los Lunas, filled in for our pastor, Rev. Ark Biczak in the blessing of the letters that we wrote primarily to Sen. Martin Heinrich, Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham at St. John XXIII Catholic Community in Albuquerque.  A couple of people also wrote to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan and Rep. Steve Pearce. Bread for the World's 2016 Offering of Letters urged Congress to prioritize support for maternal and child health programs at the global level, emphasizing nutrition.

We counted a total of 91 letters from this year's Offering of Letters, which took place on July 23-24 at our parish, bringing the total in Albuquerque and Las Cruces to almost 1,650 letters. Father Hickman blessed the letters at the 9:00 a.m. Mass on July 31.  Here is a short video of the blessing, courtesy of Maria Duran.

OL 2016: A Summer Offering of Letters (in Between the Two Political Conventions)

Summer is hardly the ideal time to hold an Offering of Letters. This is especially the case during the summer of 2016. On the weekend after the Republican National Convention and before the Democratic Convention, our senators and congressional representatives were likely going into election or reelection mode. 

And yet, parishioners at St. John XXIII Catholic Community in Albuquerque, including young Allison (pictured at left), felt it was important to let Congress know that politics is not just about elections and reelections. Politics involves an effort to affect policy, urging decision-makers to make the types of choices that favor the disadvantaged in local, national and international communities.  

For that reason, several dozen parishioners at St. John XXIII Catholic Community in Albuquerque took time to write letters to Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich, and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, urging them to put more funding into programs. We managed to get close to 100 letters. 

We owed it to the parishioners who took the time to write the letters to present them as a true offering to God and as a sign of our commitment to our fellow human beings. On the Sunday after our Offering of Letters, we brought them up to the altar in a basket and asked Rev. Stephen Hickman, who was filling in for our pastor (Rev. Ark Biczak), to offer a blessing on our letters. (By the way, Father Ark was away on a mission trip to Africa).  

Father Stephen not only consecrated our letters with words, but with holy water.
 

Rev. Stephen Hickman poses with Offering of  Letters Team at St. John XXIII

  Here are a handful of scenes from the Offering of Letters at our parish.