Groceries for Christmas

  While I am writing this, forty families are waiting outside for a group of policeman to bring a bagful of groceries and two kilos of rice.  The other day Mayor Lim of Manila sent six hundred bags of groceries for our parishioners so they can celebrate "Noche Buena" or Christmas Eve with the usual meal consisting of spaghetti with tomato sauce, a loaf of bread, a can of spam or corn beef and maybe even some fruit.  The first time I was invited to a Noche Buena meal I almost cried thinking of all the turkey dinners I had eaten on Christmas.  For our people here this simple meal is a festive occasion and they enjoy it.  They of course are grateful if they can make it a little more festive with a few extra groceries which are donated to our parish.

  The sad thing is that there is never enough to go around to all the needy families.  We can only give to a fraction of the families.  The people who are lucky enough to receive the groceries are happy, but those who do not receive anything can become angry at us priests and jealous of their neighbors.  Unfortunately, these gifts, which were intended to bring joy at Christmas, can actually lead to dissensions in our very close-knit community between those who have a little and those who have even less.

  I remember that we could count about three hundred homeless people in the downtown area of Nagoya, Japan, where I worked for thirty years.  Before Christmas various groups would collect rice and other foods for these homeless.  With just about 300 we could manage to feed them quite well.  But what do you do when you have 30,000 people close to starvation in your parish?  Even truckloads of rice would not be enough to go around.  Bags of groceries at Christmas or other dole-outs are not the answer to institutionalized poverty.   Although gifts can bring Christmas joy to a few for a day, we need more radical solutions to alleviate poverty.  We followers of Jesus Christ have a lot of work to do before the Word of God can become Incarnate to all our brothers and sisters of the world.

  At this Christmas season may the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all.  Amen.