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------oaiue ooa's commandment in the
interests of keeping your traditions!’”
Is Jesus speaking to us as well? Yes.
We judge people by what they own or don’t own. In these united States we have imaged for ourselves and our children the Great American Dream - a big house, two cars, all the right clothes, all the right clubs and so on. If a person has not achieved this dream, then society says something is wrong with him or her.
An alternative approach is found in the opening words of t e Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Vatican II, 1965):
“The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
These words challenge us to go past the numbers in statistics and the categories of the system, to the individuals:
—to fathers and mothers who shed tears because they cannot provide adequate food, shelter and clothing for their children;
-to young, unwed mothers who think their only contribution in society is their ability to have children.
Many of us who have enough food, shelter, clothing and someone to love n<; for ------------ —■— ------------------—
In this age of information, we know if there is a need to be more informed we seek out those with experience concerning the issue in question. This brings us to the focus of this column and subsequent monthly articles on real-life stories.
Staff members and volunteers in the Catholic Social and Community Services (CSCS) Office of Emergency Assistance work with people who find themselves in difficult situations, many times situations that have been dictated by others.
Think for a moment to a time when life’s pressures did not allow you to think clearly. Most of us can remember a person, possibly a family member or an objective third party, who helped us come to the answer which, under normal conditions, we could have arrived at ourselves.
CSCS’s Office of Emergency Assistance is that help for many people. The office receives 20-40 telephone calls and office visits daily from families seeking help with many different problems. That help is sometimes financial, other times information, and still other times sharing our knowledge of available resources.
Through an agreement between CSCS’s Office of Emergency Assistance and the Gulf Pine Catholic you will be able to share in some of these stories. Once each month an article detailing the story of one of these many families and individuals who come to CSCS/OEA will be printed. (For the purpose of confidentiality, the identities of such people will be protected.)
We hope these articles will help bring to focus a part of life that is rarely seen by much of society. These stories are not of problems in foreign lands or distant cities. They are the stories of people in our diocese, our parishes, our neighborhoods and, yes, maybe in our own families.
We encourage your response to these articles. We also encourage your time and involvement.
If you want to help alleviate some of the suffering, give us a call at 432-0045, or drop us a line at CSCS/OEA, P.O. Box 1457, Biloxi, MS 39533.