Catholic Charities. Providing Help. Creating Hope.
VISION: Believing in the presence of God in our midst, we proclaim the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the person by sharing in the mission of Jesus given to the Church. To this end, Catholic Charities works with individuals, families, and communities to help them meet their needs, address their issues, eliminate oppression, and build a just and compassionate society.
MISSION: Rooted in the Mission of the Diocese of Youngstown "to minister to the people in the six counties of northeastern Ohio . . .(and) to the world community", we are called to provide service to people in need, to advocate for justice in social structures, and to call the entire Church and other people of good will to do the same.
GOALS: Catholic Charities is devoted to helping meet basic human needs, strengthening families, building communities and empowering low-income people. Working to reduce poverty in half by 2020.
KEY VALUE: Hospitality
WHAT WE DO: Organizing Love. "As a community, the Church must practise love. Love thus needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community" (Deus Caritas Est, par. 20)
Photograph of stained glass window at Scots' Church, Melbourne.
On Sunday (Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A http://www.usccb.org/nab/072411.shtml we read in the Gospel of Matthew more parables about the Kingdom of God. Jesus proclaims that the Kingdom is like a great treasure found in a field; the finder sells all he has to buy that field. Again, the Kingdom of God is like a merchant who discovers a pearl of great value; this merchant does the same. We have encountered Jesus himself -- that great treasure -- opening up the Kingdom of God each day. Jesus invites us to sift out the good from the bad, and shift our priorities to Him and His message of love and hope. We gain another insight from the first reading from Kings, wherein Solomon is invited by God to ask for some gift. The gift Solomon humbly asks for is for an “understanding heart.” What do we ask for? What prize do we seek? What would we sell everything for? Jesus offers his simple gift of love.
In Catholic Charities http://www.ccdoy.org , we offer many persons and families material assistance to help them get through the day, and continue to stay in solidarity with them as they struggle to break out of poverty. As a ministry of the Church, we offer a great treasure -- the love of God. We welcome each person with words and deeds that witness to Jesus’ great love for each person. Yes, Catholic Charities is there to help each person with financial or psychological aid, but we even offer more: the healing presence of Jesus. We engage each person who visits our doors with an “understanding heart” that shares good news and hope.
Reflection from Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate
Technological development can give rise to the idea that technology is self-sufficient when too much attention is given to the “how” questions, and not enough to the many “why” questions underlying human activity. For this reason technology can appear ambivalent. Produced through human creativity as a tool of personal freedom, technology can be understood as a manifestation of absolute freedom, the freedom that seeks to prescind from the limits inherent in things. The process of globalization could replace ideologies with technology, allowing the latter to become an ideological power that threatens to confine us within an a priori that holds us back from encountering being and truth. Were that to happen, we would all know, evaluate and make decisions about our life situations from within a technocratic cultural perspective to which we would belong structurally, without ever being able to discover a meaning that is not of our own making. The “technical” worldview that follows from this vision is now so dominant that truth has come to be seen as coinciding with the possible. But when the sole criterion of truth is efficiency and utility, development is automatically denied. True development does not consist primarily in “doing”. The key to development is a mind capable of thinking in technological terms and grasping the fully human meaning of human activities, within the context of the holistic meaning of the individual's being. Even when we work through satellites or through remote electronic impulses, our actions always remain human, an expression of our responsible freedom. Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens our horizon. But human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility. Hence the pressing need for formation in an ethically responsible use of technology. Moving beyond the fascination that technology exerts, we must reappropriate the true meaning of freedom, which is not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being, beginning with our own personal being. (par. 70)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.htm
Some important date(s) this week:
http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/ByDate.aspx
See website for biographies of Saints and Blessed celebrated this week.
http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/icons/st.-martha-8-x10.jpg
FRIDAY, JULY 29. St. Martha. Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus were evidently close friends of Jesus. He came to their home simply as a welcomed guest, rather than as one celebrating the conversion of a sinner like Zacchaeus or one unceremoniously received by a suspicious Pharisee. The sisters feel free to call on Jesus at their brother’s death, even though a return to Judea at that time seems almost certain death.
No doubt Martha was an active sort of person. On one occasion (see Luke 10:38-42) she prepares the meal for Jesus and possibly his fellow guests and forthrightly states the obvious: All hands should pitch in to help with the dinner.
Yet, as biblical scholar Father John McKenzie points out, she need not be rated as an “unrecollected activist.” The evangelist is emphasizing what our Lord said on several occasions about the primacy of the spiritual: “...[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear…. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:25b, 33a); “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4b); “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:6a).
Martha’s great glory is her simple and strong statement of faith in Jesus after her brother’s death. “Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world’” (John 11:25-27).
SHARING HOPE IN HARD ECONOMIC TIMES.
Two-thirds of the funds raised through the Annual Bishop’s Appeal for Catholic Charities and Church support the work of Catholic Charities throughout the six counties of the Diocese of Youngstown. If you have not made a 2011 pledge, please consider a gift. Your support helps Catholic Charities continue serving others in Jesus’ Name.
PAPAL INTENTIONS: July 2011
General Intention: That Christians may contribute to alleviating the material and spiritual suffering of AIDS patients, especially in the poorest countries.
Missionary Intention: For the religious who work in mission territories, that they may be witnesses of the joy of the Gospel and living signs of the love of Christ.
Corporal Works of Mercy: The seven practices of charity toward our neighbor
Feed the hungry
Give drink to the thirsty
Clothe the naked
Shelter the homeless
Visit the sick
Visit those in prison
Bury the dead
Note: Please consider joining our
FACEBOOK CAUSE http://apps.facebook.com/causes/106889
FACEBOOK GROUP https://www.facebook.com/pages/Catholic-Charities-Diocese-of-Youngstown/138817639487339
TWITTER account, CCDOY, http://twitter.com/CCDOY
for current updates and calls to action that we can all use.
See our website at www.catholiccharitiesyoungstown.org for links to the our ministries and services.
For more information on Catholic Social Doctrine and its connection to our ministries, visit my blog at: http://corbinchurchthinking.blogspot.com/
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