service on Homelessness

Lord God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: we hear your Word and sing your praises. We meet at the Table and partake of your Sacrament–the gospel made visible. You call us to yourself, and you send us out ...

You cannot be lonely if you help the lonely.

When your burden is heaviest, you can always lighten a little some other burden. At the times when you cannot see God, there is still open to you this sacred possibility, to show God; for it is the lo...

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

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.

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. ...

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

Lord of Hosts, we remember the words of your servant, James: whoever knows the good they ought to do and does not do it, sins. Oh Lord, have mercy on us. Too often we have failed to act when the world...

We are not called to help people. We are called to follow Jesus, in whose service we learn who we are and how we are to help and be helped.

A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in the 21st century. But oc...

There is an old cliché from the Boy Scout movement in which three Scouts report that they had helped an old lady across the road. “Why did it take three of you?” asks the Scoutmaster. “Because,” they ...

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.

The priest Henri Nouwen learned humility on a mission trip to South America. He went expecting to pass on his wisdom to the poor and unenlightened. During his six-month stay, Nouwen concluded that a d...

O God, the Father of the forsaken, the help of the weak, the supplier of the needy, you have distributed and proportioned your gifts to body and soul, in such sort that all may acknowledge and perform...

As our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor . . . and each one should become . . . a Christ to the other.

An ancient legend tells of a well-respected rabbi who would vanish from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity among his students, who wondered if their ...

Our mission is the mission of Jesus Christ.  He lived as an ordinary human being. We will care for the common life of humanity. He served men and women. We are committed to working for human wel...

Humble Father, we admit to you tonight that our selfishness runs deeper than we know. Even in our service to others, we often expect a reward or result. We really only want to serve others when we see...

Experiencing God’s Goodness through Giving I’ve seen God provide for my family and me in some remarkable ways throughout the past year. I know that many of us lost a lot during Covid, and I don’t mak...

In More Give to Live, Dr. Douglas Lawson provides evidence that the urge toward generosity begins early in life. He describes a continuum that he calls the “Giving Path.” This path begins with parents...

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...

There are two ways each of us can approach life: spending our days meeting our needs or looking for ways to meet others' needs. The mystery is that when we spend our life focused on our own needs,...

Leonard Sweet shares an interesting story in the introduction to Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church , about a parish pastor who lived in a Scottish village near Edinburgh called Davidson’s Mains. ...

On the evening of October 15, 1940, London experienced one of the fiercest attacks of the Blitz. A total of 480 German aircraft dropped approximately 386 tons of high explosives and 70,000 incendiary ...

Community service has become a patch for morality. You can devote your life to community service and be a total schmuck.

John Howard (1726-1790) was a British philanthropist and reformer who, based on his Christian convictions, dedicated his life to the improvement of hospital conditions and prison reform. On his tomb...

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

This busy world will surge about you with the tread of restless feet and the throb of restless hearts. And little that you will do will seem to make a pause in the rush of things. But you may in Chris...

What he [Jesus] was attempting to instill in his disciples was the attitude of a servant: humility and a willingness to put others ahead of oneself. In that culture, washing the feet of others would s...