Every year about this time a national collection is taken up in all of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America. This collection is conducted by the National Religious Retirement Office. That the collection is needed at all is a shameful thing. In the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church enjoyed extraordinarily explosive growth – schools, orphanages, hospitals, clinics, and other ministries – you name it. Men and women came forward by the tens of thousands in order to build up the life of the Church and build it they did. Now with the passage of time many of them are quite elderly. In fact, many of them have gone to God. I remember when there were 150,000 religious women in the United States. That number is down now to less than 40,000.
In addition to the sisters, of course, there are brothers and religious order priests who worked long days and endless hours for what is essentially a stipend (read room and board). The beneficiaries of their work and generosity are now for the most part very affluent American Catholics. Happily, the annual collection is a sizable one. In fact, it is usually the largest collection of the year. Nevertheless, it is pathetic in terms of the debt that prosperous Catholics owe to the men and women whose generous productive lives were spent to build up the Church for the parents and grandparents of affluent American Catholics today.
If you missed the collection, why not sit down and send a check to the national office? The check would be received at National Religious Retirement Office/CW, 3211 Fourth Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194. Please make your check payable to the Retirement Fund for Religious. 

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Children love Christmas and they should. It is a time of excitement, beauty, families coming together and, of course, with kids opening those presents, getting the tricycle, getting the doll that she has been wishing for months, all come together to make a wonderful thing.
There is nothing wrong with any of this but it would be a shame to let Christmas come and go without talking to our children or grandchildren about the joy of giving and the need to practice generosity to those around us. Little children are naturally selfish. They see themselves as the center of the world and sometimes they see a world in which they are almost alone with the exception of the fact that they have two full-time servants to respond to their wants and desires. Often a small child learns too early that when it says, “I want” the world changes and suddenly what it “wants” is there. Such attitudes can be created that will produce tremendous frustration and unhappiness later on. Sooner or later, the child as an adolescent or young adult will learn the hard way that “I want” does not produce the expected but it can produce frustration and pain.
We should all talk to our little children and give them opportunities to practice to share what they have with each other. Even very young children can begin to learn about their feelings. Feelings can pull us this way or that. Children can learn the importance of getting along with their brothers, sisters and schoolmates.
Have a Merry Christmas…no, have a generous Christmas!

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November 11th, Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Once again, we have a lovely set of readings that dovetail very neatly around a particular theme and today that theme is generosity. The authors who pulled the lectionary together after the Second Vatican Council toss over the entire bible turning to find excerpts or selections that tied together to convey a particular message. The usual method is that the first reading would contain a basic idea that is being developed in today’s liturgy and the 3rd reading of the Gospel would amplify it from the teachings or actions of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today’s first reading relates a wonderful story of the prophet Elijah. He points out that she has nothing, virtually nothing except the makings of one tiny meal for herself. Nevertheless, she makes that meal and Elijah blesses her with an unlimited food supply far into the future. The message is plain and simple. God rewards generosity.

The Gospel builds on the concept of generosity with Jesus directing his apostles to gaze at the awesome response of a destitute woman to the needs of the temple upkeep. The heavies of the synagogue were making sizable gifts but this gray headed old lady drops in two copper coins. Jesus immediately points out to the apostles that her tiny gift is greater than that of those who sit at the head table during a building fund drive. They gave from their surplus wealth which is also a tax deduction. She gave when she had nothing.

Charitable giving in our modern world is somewhat convoluted. Most people don’t really believe that they have ENOUGH money so any time they throw in a $50 or write a check they consider themselves as being generous. Maybe they are but that generosity is offset by the tax deduction. Giving today is also complicated because there is an endless series of needs and demands and prudent people have to divide gifts on the basis of their own priorities and the needs that are present in the world around them. I think the criteria should be that does it hurt a little? When you review your own family finances and look at everything you have given away, all the causes to which you have given, did they total out to being hurt a little bit? If the answer is no, then I think that you and I should begin with those who get the buildings named after them. On Judgment Day we are going to be a lot safer with the little old widow.

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Most people are extraordinarily generous and willingly rush in to help a friend or even a stranger who is in some difficulty. I think that this has been especially obvious in this country as the tragic and unnecessary problem of hunger hovers over the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. Happily, Americans have found ways to respond and programs have developed all over the United States to respond to this pressing need. Central Texas is blessed by one of the best such organizations in the United States and I am referring to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas.

I am now in my third year of doing this blog and I have tried to work strenuously not to repeat myself, but in the cause of hunger, I feel free to do it. Hunger is here, hunger is unnecessary, people want to help and one of the best vehicles by which to do that is the Capital Area Food Bank.

The Capital Area Food Bank, headed by Hank Perret, who is president and CEO, has developed programs over a wide-range of areas but the basic program is just extraordinary. Each month, the Capital Area Food Bank distributes TWO MILLION POUNDS OF FOOD. They tell me that this is the equivalent of a Boeing 737 airplane every day and 365 days of the year. Since I am not knowledgeable about the weight of a Boeing 737, I take them at their word because I know them to be extraordinarily generous, committed and dedicated fellow citizens. May God bless them each and every one.

The problem in dealing with hunger is that it has a tendency to return. Many of us feel very good when we have helped someone with needs in terms of the short-term with someone on the street in trouble, buy them a cheeseburger, slip them $5.00 and feel like we have done a good thing. We have but the problem has not been solved. The ultimate solution of the problem of hunger is generating enough jobs so that everybody is able to work and provide for their own needs. However, we are in a society that, tragically enough, is not able to do that right now. Even though Austin is one of the best off cities in the nation in terms of jobs available, we still have thousands and thousands of people who are in need. Most of my readers have those jobs and most of those readers have helped with the problem of hunger in the past, but I really urge you to stop and make every effort to reach out and help the Capital Area Food Bank. Their address is 8201 South Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas 78745, (512) 282-2111.

Who was it who said, “When I was hungry, you gave me to eat?” HE did, of course, go on to say something else about someone who did not help him when he was hungry, but let’s not go into that at this time. Again, I am always amazed and thankful by the generosity of most of the people around us.

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Do you ever feel a mild sense of depression as you watch the evening news or scan the front page of the daily newspaper? Greece continues in its crisis situation, the safety of our nuclear facilities are in question, unemployment continues to be agonizingly high and the traditional marriage continues in a slow decline. Wow! What to do?

I am thrilled by the fact that no matter what the problem is you will find generous and courageous people who will step forward and attempt to rectify the situation. That is true with governmental conflicts, international finance or the threat of nuclear war. Those are the dramatic stories that get on the front page, but there are other stories of heroism and generosity that are less known but, nevertheless, an excellent reflection of the goodness that surrounds us.

McDonald’s Corporation, the fast food giant, has gotten a MUCH DESERVED BAD PRESS for the way that it has pushed unhealthy food on children through its advertising methods. However, I was delighted to see last week that McDonald’s has signed an agreement with the Humane Society of the United States to only buy pork (a $21 billion industry) from suppliers who agreed to phase out cruel confinement of pregnant sows in crates which virtually eliminate any type of movement. This followed on the fact that many of McDonald’s competitors, such as Burger King and Wendy’s, have already begun to move away from suppliers who use these cruel confining crates.

The Humane Society should turn its eyes towards the extraordinarily cruel way in which eggs are produced in this country. Sadly, the National Association of Commercial Egg Producers have just introduced in Congress a bill that would seal the fate of millions of laying hens keeping them locked in factory farm cages forever. Properly known as the Rotten Egg Bill, this outrageous measure would establish egg factory cages as a national standard would be difficult to challenge or change by any state law or public vote. The Rotten Egg Bill would keep hens forever suffering in cramped metal cages.

Thank God that the Humane Society is fighting back and if we don’t believe that our breakfast eggs should be a source of unnecessary pain and suffering, we should support them too.

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One hundred and fifty plus one hundred and fifty equals three hundred! That is the number of houses Habitat will have completed in May when it finishes the new home for the Rivero family in East Austin. The story is better than that.

Austin Habitat started in 1985 and by 2004, it had completed its first 150 homes. Seven short years later, it completed another 150. This is a huge triumph considering it took 19 years to build that first 150 and the second 150 was completed in only seven. This is a reflection of the tremendous local support from institutions and individuals that Habitat is generating.

I am privileged to frequently go to Habitat construction sites and am always edified by two different aspects of the scene: first, the generosity and commitment of these volunteer workers each of whom gives up eight or ten Saturdays in a row, and secondly, they are having a marvelous time doing it. By the time a house is built, there has been real bonding between these workers and the needs of the city. Habitat has now built hundreds of thousands of homes all over the world, but especially in North America.

If you ever get a little depressed by the bad news in the front page of the paper, look behind the scenes and see the generosity of our people manifested in programs like Habitat for Humanity, Hospice Austin, St. Louise House, etc.

There is still great hope for the human family.

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