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Dear Friends,

In what ways may an Eastern Catholic parish help the poor and others in need?

What does your parish do? What more could all parishes do?

My former parish had a very "ethnic" attitude that understood poor people in the streets as "lazy" and "unwilling to make use of opportunities available to all in North America."

The really "poor" people were from the old country.

Alex

GLORY TO JESUS CHRIST!
GLORY TO HIM FOREVER!
or
XPUCTOCb BOCKPEC!
(depending on your calendar)

In my parish, we have the Lenten Mite cans and we support Holy Annunciation Byzantine Carmelite Monastic community near Hazelton,PA. Every year our parish takes a bus trip and visits some of the parishes in the NE PA area and then attend vespers at Holy Annunciation to present them with a donation.

Last year, we also "adopted" an inner city parish and provided a "Christmas" for several families. We also had a "Bowl-athon" and the funds raised were given to another inner city parish to provide school supplies for to help their students.

This year, I am pushing for our parish to help support a community of retired Basilian nuns in Uzhorod and also an orphanage for children who are mentally and/or physically challenged, this is also in Uzhorod.

the least servant of the servants of God
mark

Dear Mark,

Now yours is a parish that sets a great example!

We need to hear more about parishes like yours!

How do you kick-start things? Are people willing to cooperate? Do you experience problems?

Alex

XPUTOCb BOCKPEC!

Hi Alex

It's not easy. We usually go heavy on the "guilt" angle during the Holidays. "If you can "help" you should so that the kids can have a nice Christmas"... This usually works wonders.

The "Bowl-a-thon" was for the Sunday school kids. You give them a pledge sheet and stand them at strategic places after Divine Liturgy; i.e. in front the exit doors, in front of the doughnuts, in front of the coffe pots, you'd be surprised how much money you can get pledged.

We also do the "guilt" during Great Lent with the Mite cans. We also buy the Paskas for our Easter Bazaar from the Carmelites so we know about their work.

Hope this helps....

mark


ps
if you have any other questions or need suggestions, let me know....

Our parish had an Apostolate of St. Nicholas for some years. It has largely gone dormant for the moment, what with some folks moving or going home to God, but I think it will "rise again" in the near future. (Hope so)

We managed to do a bit of good within the parish, and in the greater community.

It may be that at your parish, some folks are just waiting for someone braver than they to make the first move.


Sharon

Sharon Mech, SFO
Cantor & sinner
sharon@cmhc.com

Dear Mark,

Yes, my father-in-law has taken to doing quite a bit of schmoozing during the now 2-3 hour coffee klatch following the Sunday Liturgy.

He walks around like Phil Donahue with a microphone trying to convince munching newcomers to join the church.

He has signed up Orthodox, as well as Irish Catholics.

As soone as he has someone's agreement to join (under the threat of no more doughnuts, I'm sure), he then announces it loudly over the microphone, "And over here we have another family that is joining our parish RIGHT NOW - let's give 'em a big hand and welcome them to our family!"

This approach seems to work.

Also, people seem to prefer to bring clothes and food items from home, rather than give money, although they do that to.

They got together to pack parcels for the victims of the floods in the Carpathians.

Father did a really good job at Easter. He just got back from Ukraine after a one year absence.

Recent immigrants as well as old-timers bowed their heads in silence as he exclaimed: "Prayer can change our lives! Those young people I worked with over this past year in Ukraine - THEY pray! And their lives are so changed that they are turning others' lives around too!"

Guilt and Slavs go together like perogies and sour cream!

Alex

Dear Sharon,

Yes, it is always easy to collect for the needy who are way off somewhere.

Much more difficult to connect with those around us . . .

But once things get underway, everyone seems to want to make a contribution.

Alex

From your church, temple, or mosque, your faith community--in the US--can offer inquirers a cornucopia of useful information linking to real-time assistance.

All you need is access to the net.

America's Job Bank: www.ajb.org [ajb.org]

America's Career InfoNet: www.acinet.org [acinet.org]

America's Learning Exchange: www.alx.org [alx.org]

America's Service Locator:
www.servicelocator.org [servicelocator.org]

We provide many services--utilizing every square inch of Sufi Islamic Community property--even though we are a small congregation.

We also provide meals for the children and families of those who are utilizing our on-line "ministry" and "baby sitting" for those with children who are actively seeking work. We also have a small--but well stocked--food pantry, as well as food vouchers and vouchers from merchants for free or discounted clothes and shoes, etc.

Do we utilize our social service ministry as a missionary and conversion tool? Absolutely!


Salaam,

Abdur

[ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: traveler ]

Since our parish is in a lower economic area of town we try to have a rummage sale each year to provide inexpensive clothes for the people in the neighborhood. (We also take the opportunity to push Pyrohy and poppy seed rolls.)

We also have an ongoing collection jar for the needy. We have done various things with the money collected such as given it to a family where the father lost his job and they had a new born baby son. We have also sent the contents to Ukraine for the poor there.

We are holding monthly meetings to come up with ideas on other possible ways to help.

Some pending ideas:
1. Collecting non parishable food items for a local food bank run by three Catholic parishes

2. Collecting baby items such as disposable diapers, toys, clothes, etc. for a local home for unwed mothers. This is a wonderful idea and a perfect way to support Pro-Life issues.

Thank you everyone for your ideas which may in turn help us at my parish!

With Best Wishes
Stefan-Ivan

CHARITY?

For FY 2001, the U.S. Catholic Church (East and West), spent approximately US$2.30 Billion on charitable outreach programs through "Catholic Charities" and other Catholic institutions, and through 20,000 parishes in the U.S.

AmdG

Dear Amado,

That's great!

My parish is of much more modest financial means.

How do we raise a billion dollars? Any ideas?

Alex

Dear Alex:

By the magic of numbers!

The 20,000 Catholic parishes have an average of 3,000 faithful, who contributed to the collection plates in FY 2001 approximately US$7 Billion.

In addition, the government channels and entrusts funds to various Catholic institutions, the Catholic Church being the largest NGO in the U.S.(U.S. Census 2000 statistics show that 1 in 4
Americans, or roughly 25% of the total population, is a Catholic.!)

Although we are really worried how the recent scandals will play out as regards the voluntary contributions of parishoners henceforth.

AmdG

[ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: Amado Guerrero ]

[ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: Amado Guerrero ]

These are terrific ideas. There's more to giving than money. Making items: a baby quilt, sewing or crocheting hats for chemo patients, bringing meals to a family with an adult recovering from surgery -- these can be started by an individual and then by two or three more and it grows into a parish project.

Traditionally monastics wove baskets in the desert, but this is not too practical in our contemporary American culture. But monastics and potential monastics can make items and others can give them away. Making simple items to give away is a marvelous way to "pray without ceasing" and also help others in one's city and/or community.

These are just a few thoughts. We can all do something to help others. In fact, we SHOULD all do things to help others.

Dear Monasticbeginner,

Yes, making things like crafts - I like that! Money contributions are important, but we can also give "of ourselves" in other ways, such as this one.

A group at our hospital crafted Cross book marks for Christian patients. I bought one when I was there at the diabetic clinic. It is beautiful and inspirational. It helped me through a difficult time.

One monastic saint who made baskets in the desert used to pray while he made them.

He could make 17 baskets daily as a maximum. He then gave two of these to an acquaintance as payment for praying over him while he took some needed sleep.

That way, he said, he prayed always!

But making such things for children, or gifts for chronically ill people - and praying while doing it, now there's a project worthy of the best monastic traditions.

And lay ones too!

Alex

Dear MonasticBeginner,

I like your suggestion so much that I'm not going to "Monk-y" around with it, but will get some people together to see what the need is and what we can do.

Alex