{"id":2663,"date":"2019-10-09T11:21:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T15:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/?p=2663"},"modified":"2019-10-09T11:21:52","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T15:21:52","slug":"hunger-as-a-challenge-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/hunger-as-a-challenge-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunger as a Challenge for All"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A farmer at work in Kenya’s Mount Kenya region. Pic by Neil Palmer (CIAT).<\/p><\/div>\n

The specter of starvation must be a horror beyond the imagination of those who are assured of ample food each day. We cannot be ignorant of this dimension of the burdens caused by poverty in so many parts of the world. Organizations such as Catholic Relief Services<\/a> \u00a0describe the urgent needs of so many in various parts of the world. The current and ongoing challenge was presented by Pope Francis in his Message for the World Food Day 2018<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The prophet Amos presented an even graver situation for the people of ancient Israel:<\/p>\n

Yes, days are coming, says the Lord God
\nWhen I will send famine upon the land:
\nNot a famine of bread, or thirst for water,
\nBut for hearing the word of the Lord.
\nThen shall they wander from sea to sea
\nAnd rove from the north to the east
\nIn search of the word of the Lord,
\nBut they shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12)<\/p>\n

The Sacred Scriptures provide spiritual nourishment in abundance for people of faith.\u00a0 Besides the Word of God as the foundation of the Church\u2019s prayer, the Divine Office in English translation offers poetry and prose that manifest the way God\u2019s Word is integrated into the lives of the faithful. Besides the classical poems of Latin and Greek, we savor how the English language is a vehicle of prayer. On Wednesday evening of the First Week of the four week cycle instituted after the Second Vatican Council, the introductory hymn reads:<\/p>\n

O Father, whose creating hand
\nBrings harvest from the fruitful land,
\nYour providence we gladly own,
\nAnd bring our hymns before your throne
\nTo praise you for the living Bread
\nOn which our lives are daily fed.<\/p>\n

O Lord, who in the desert fed
\nThe hungry thousands in their need,
\nWhere want and famine still abound
\nLet your relieving love be found,
\nAnd in your name may we supply
\nYour hungry children when they cry.<\/p>\n

O Spirit, your revealing light
\nHas led our questing souls aright;
\nSource of our science, you have taught
\nThe marvels human minds have wrought,
\nSo that the barren deserts yield
\nThe bounty by your love revealed.<\/p>\n

From the Christian perspective, the ultimate human vocation is to give adoration and praise to God the Father through the Son and in the unity effected by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 We \u201cown\u201d or acknowledge that divine providence is the continuation of the divine act of creation. For Christians the food that sustains our bodily life prepares us for the Bread of Life (see John 6:48-58), the medicine of immortality.<\/p>\n

The miracles of Jesus multiplying loaves and fish provide an example for his followers to act in his Name to attend to the hungry, especially among children, in our time. Our feeble efforts are placed within the context of prayer because it is God\u2019s mercy that brings a solution to people\u2019s true needs.<\/p>\n

The Holy Spirit guides both the prayers of petition and the deeds of the faithful. \u201cSource of our science\u201d reminds us of Hannah\u2019s hymn (1 Samuel 2:3) where the phrase \u201cDeus scientiarum Dominus (An all-knowing God is the LORD)\u201d became the motto of the University of Ottawa. The unifying spirit of all Christian universities should be expressed in the ordering of all knowledge to the service of our neighbor as the expression of a theocentric vision. May the human quest for knowledge be guided by the divine gift of wisdom so that our choices may bring a yield that truly serves human needs while respecting the way in which all creation is in the service of God. \u201cFor the elements, in variable harmony among themselves, like the strings of the harp, produce new melody, while the flow of music steadily persists\u201d (Wisdom of Solomon 19:18).<\/p>\n

The hymn’s text written by the Methodist Donald Wynn Hughes (1911-1967), the Headmaster of Rydal School in Wales, evokes at the closing of a day the sentiments of prayer guiding a life of service. It is sung to music by Erik Routley (1917 \u2013 1982).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The specter of starvation must be a horror beyond the imagination of those who are assured of ample food each day. We cannot be ignorant of this dimension of the burdens caused by poverty in so many parts of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-prayerliturgy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2663"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}