helping the poor on Military Service

Compassionate God—In Christ, you enter our condition; you experience our sorrow and our joy ... and redeem them. By Your Holy Spirit, you carry us along: in crisis and celebration, in despair and acco...

Father–Thank You for the opportunities You put before us every day to make a difference; and for special friends who serve You in all they do. Thank You for those faithful in their callings: whether ...

O Lord, we remember before you all the workers of the world: Workers with hand or brain: Workers in cities or in the fields: Those who go forth to toil and those who keep house: Employers and employee...

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

Reflection We all are aware of cultures that have a hierarchy—a pecking order. The elite and the hoi polloi. The acceptable and the unacceptable. In such cultures, the hierarchy determines the role. ...

He who gives of his goods to help the poor, to send children to school, to educate them in God’s Word and other arts ... he is giving to the baby Jesus.

There are also many historical examples of Christians faithfully using political means to fight for justice and righteousness.  William Wilberforce: Politician and Abolitionist William Wilber...

Martin of Tours became a great leader of the monastic movement in the West. In his early life, Martin was conscripted as a soldier in the Roman army. During this time, he became a catechumen (that is,...

We beseech You, Master, to be our helper and protector. Save the afflicted among us; have mercy on the lowly; Raise up the fallen; appear to the needy; heal the ungodly; Restore the wanderers of...

Deacon or other leader With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord, saying "Lord, have mercy." For the peace from above, for the loving-kindness of God, and for the ...

Many years ago, I watched a documentary on the remarkable ministry of Mother Teresa among the poverty-stricken people of Calcutta. At one stage there was a moving exchange between her and the commenta...

Zombie phobia kicked in as I climbed the hospital’s dimly lit cement steps. For some reason, every hospital scene in every zombie movie I’d ever seen came flooding back. But this was no ordinary hospi...

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your lo...

Introduction Only John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus washed his disciple’s feet during his last meal with them. The other texts for this day remember the Passover and the context it sets for Jesus’s w...

I recently had lunch with a former British boarding school chaplain. He remembers being with the boys in his school the morning thirty years ago that the very first pictures of widespread starvation i...

At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave m...

Isaiah 58 tells us that the Lord wants us to share our bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into our homes, share our clothing with those who need some and not hide ourselves from the rest o...

You came to us, Word made flesh, to show us what it means to love. You came to us, Word made flesh, to teach us how to serve. You came to us, Word made flesh, to remind us to clothe the naked and fe...

An important aspect of being an image bearer of God is to work and to create value by serving others within our collaborative economic system.

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Leader: Praise the Lord! Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commands. People: their offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. ...

Triune God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer; you created, redeemed, and sustain all who call on Your name in any language, place and time. We come to you as Lord of all...

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. Th...

Both the Old and New Testaments indicate that caring for the poor is one of the primary indicators of saving faith (Isa. 58:1–12; 1 John 3:17–18). Doing nothing is simply not an option for a follower ...

Lord of grace and truth: You meet us where we are. And when everybody lies to us, you speak with candor and honesty about what’s good, right and true. We can trust you–and we do. That’s why we can rej...

There was a rich young man who had a series of disappointments that made him feel that life was not worth while, as if he really had nothing left to live for. On his way to the river where he intended...

Father God, too often we show preference to those who appear to have it all together, to those whom we consider complete: the self-motivated, self-made, and self-sufficient. We honor the rich and look...

Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have non...

In 2000, the National Gallery in London put on a millennial exhibition entitled “Seeing Salvation.” That was a case in point—especially remembering that European countries tend to be far more “secular...

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its ...