Villa La Paz Newsletter June 2024
We have no time for despair or complacency. God needs us, is waiting for us, to do something to solve the problems, to end the killing, to end the inequality, to feed the poor, to welcome the migrant, to become more compassionate and merciful, and to begin to earnestly work for the common good as we grow in respect for all of humanity and people whose faith in God or sexual orientation is different than ours. All lives matter. Only love can defuse hate.
Gerard Thomas Straub
from his book
There Are No Other
Soon to be published by
Pax et Bonum Communications
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Presidential Address
April 16, 1953
As I sit writing this I hear our children playing soccer in the patio. There is pure joy in their shouting and in their enthusiasm to best one another. It is a joy and enthusiasm that too many children in this world have never experienced. Wars, conflicts, and poverty in many parts of the world rob children of their childhood. They are forced to flee with their parents to hopefully safer areas and many become permanent refugees and asylum seekers. And what of their parents who witness their children become ill from lack of proper nutrition, for lack of clean water and lack of medical care. The greatest tragedy that can befall a parent is to witness the decline and possibly death of their child. But it does not have to be this way. The clarion calls of Gerard Thomas Straub, Henri Nouwen, St. Theresa of Calcutta and Dwight Eisenhower enjoin us to prevent such tragedies by recognizing that we are all one, created by the same Father and responsible for one another, whether the other is a member of our own family or lives half-a-world away. We cannot escape our responsibilities to one another. Our Father depends on us to care for His children. He has given us talents and resources to be used in stewardship for our needs and the needs of others. We have been given two hands, one for receiving and one for giving. We must not hoard our gifts but graciously and lovingly share them with the less fortunate.
The children on these pages came to us with unmet needs, most of which we are capable of remediating. We thank you for your support and urge you to support the children of the world that they may find joy in their childhood and not experience the tragedy of poverty, preventable illnesses, and premature death. It is in our hands.
God’s blessing on you and yours. Please keep us in your prayers.
