Joyful Gospel Living
“Come to Him, a living stone…chosen and precious in the sight of God.”
Background:
Like many other fraternities, our local fraternity (Holy Assumption-Roebling, NJ) prayed that we might find a common apostolate. At the suggestion of one of our members, we decided that this should be a pro-life apostolate. After exploring several options in our local area, we made arrangements to meet Clare Kirk, OFS (belonged to St. Peter Fraternity in Riverside, NJ) , who worked at Good Counsel Home in Riverside with expectant and new mothers. She gave us a tour of the facility and what the needs were. Later, she visited our fraternity and spoke to our membership about this life-giving ministry. In a follow-up phone call, Clare mentioned to me that there was an even greater need to assist the mothers after their two years of association with the home, when their life skills were put to the test and they sometimes struggled to adjust. At that time, Clare maintained contact with seven alumnae (new mothers) who were trying to make a life for themselves and their new babies. Our fraternity made a commitment to help one of those mothers (Emma) and her 18-month old baby Essence. It has been a wonderful journey of accompaniment for all of us. This June, Essence will be 14 years old and graduating from 8th grade!
One of our fraternity members has been at the Masonic Village in Burlington, NJ, for many years now. Every year, we take fraternity to Carla to celebrate her birthday (June 29th). Emma and Essence celebrate birthdays in May and June respectively, so Carla gets to enjoy a triple celebration. How special will the visit be this year! Little sister Symone’s birthday is in September, but she gets to party, too. Carla looks forward to these visits and lavishes affection on Emma and the girls.
Reflection:
A few years ago, my husband Jeff and I made a trip to the White Mountains of Maine to visit one of my brothers and his wife. They live on Mt. Abram, but their home provides easy access to the Presidential range in New Hampshire and the Appalachian Trail (AT) as it crosses into Maine. One day, we decided to take a hike on the AT and found a trailhead to Table Rock, famous locally for the spectacular views when reaching the summit. As we hiked the rugged trail, we encountered the characteristic terrain details of Maine: stones, rocks, and boulders! When we were about 2/3 of the way up, we were both envious of bighorn sheep and their abilities to traverse such terrain!
What does a living stone look like? In St. Peter’s epistle, he encourages the local Church to “Come to Him, a living stone, rejected by human beings, chosen and precious in the sight of God.” This was an appeal to people of faith to turn to the Light of Christ and have a desire to be a living stone to build up the Church as a visible sign of Christ’s presence in our world.
On April 14th, the Franciscan Action Network (FAN) hosted a one-hour webinar to encourage people of faith to advocate for a just Farm Bill. This important legislation not only protects the needs of farmers who raise the food that will nourish our country and people in faraway lands, but it also funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Both of these programs are critical to the life and dignity of people affected by poverty.
From dialogue with the coordinators at FAN, I knew that their promotion of advocacy was to get constituents to write to the members of Congress to make it a priority to preserve funding for those who are in need. When the One Big Beautiful Bill was passed last fall, there was intention to cut $30B of SNAP funding over the next decade. The proposed budget for FY2027 includes a $4.9B reduction to SNAP. What must a living stone do to build the spiritual house whose cornerstone is Jesus Christ? These reductions have a direct impact on struggling families like Emma’s.
I visited the Catholic Charities USA website to see what the impact has been. In recent news, I found a link to a letter to the Senate Committee on Appropriations by Kerry Alys Robinson, the President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, in which she wrote on behalf of the 169 diocesan Catholic Charities agencies in the US to make an urgent appeal for the vulnerable in our society:
In the introduction to her letter, Robinson wrote:
“As you consider the Fiscal Year 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill, Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) urges you to invest in programs that protect and support poor and vulnerable children, seniors, families, people facing behavioral and mental health crises, workforce development and training.”
As living stones, we can choose to place ourselves where we intentionally build a strong structure. The Gospel teaches us how we are to live by loving one another and following the example of Jesus in seeing Him in one another. In this weekend’s Gospel from St. John, Jesus tells His followers: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.”
What is ours to do? In our parish life, we know that there is a ministry to those in need through the efforts of our St. Vincent de Paul Society. Many people come to our food pantry for temporary and sustaining assistance. In many cases, many of those families also receive SNAP benefits, but they do not cover the growing expenses of our world today. As draconian cuts are made to these critical benefits, how will families cope? What must living stones do for one another? How does our faith in God inspire us to do the work as Christ, our foundation, would?
For 13 years, our Secular Franciscan fraternity has accompanied a young single mother and her two daughters as a pro-life ministry. Through this accompaniment, we have learned a great deal about the difficulties that poor people face with the very basics of society: food nourishment; affordable housing; sources of basic material needs such as clothing, furniture, public transportation, legal protection; and serious safety concerns when living and working in dangerous areas. These experiences are part of an ongoing conversion for those who sincerely want to be living stones for Christ.
When Pope Francis released his encyclical Fratelli Tutti in 2020, I explored the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) using the search engine for “common good” and found 73 results. In Part Three (Life in Christ), there was a resonating teaching for living stones:
“Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this duty of respect, the right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order.” (CCC, 1738)
The Beatitudes are our blueprint for building the Kingdom of God here and now. Jesus teaches us that God’s reign is visible where people respond to the needs for righteousness and justice with mercy and compassion. There are so many needs in our world today. Sometimes, there can be a global impact by a singular event (e.g., the Chernobyl nuclear disaster). Every person of faith is called to be a living stone, and then it is good to:
“…let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”
Teresa S. Redder, OFS
Saint Katharine Drexel Regional Minister
