Words of Wisdom

Notable Input from:

Chinese proverb: "If you want happiness for a lifetime, 

                              help somebody"

St. Francis of Assissi: "It is in giving that we receive"

Leo Tolstoy: The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity"

Winston Churchill: "We make a living by what we get;

                                We make a life by what we give"

Robert Louis Stevenson: "You can give without loving, 

                                          but you can never love without giving"

Mother Teresa: "It's not  how much we give but

                          how much we put into giving."

Pope Francis: "Christ leads us to go out from ourselves more and                               more, to give ourselves and to serve others"

Peter Maurin and Concrete Acts of Love

From Bishop Robert Barron's LENT REFLECTIONS:

Peter Maurin and Concrete

Acts of Love

Today I'd like to highlight one of the great Catholic figures of the twentieth century, Peter Maurin. He was born in May of 1877 in the south of France, one of 23 children—that's not a typo. He was educated by the Christian Brothers and, early on, became deeply inspired by the example of St. Francis. In 1909, Maurin sailed for North America and for about twenty years lived a sort of radical Franciscan life, performing manual labor during the day, sleeping in any bed he could find, dining in skid-row beaneries. Any money he made, he spent on books or gave to those less fortunate.  During these years, Maurin was trying to develop a coherent Catholic social philosophy. The main problem with society, he felt, was that sociology, economics, and politics had all been divorced from the Gospel. The Gospel was a private concern of “religious” people and had no discernable effect on the way the political, social, and economic realms were run. In a word, he thought that society had lost its transcendent purpose. Life had come to be organized around the drive for production and the search for profits, rather than around the real spiritual development of the person. Maurin knew that the Church had an answer to this, and it was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Maurin’s program was what he called “a personalist revolution,” which meant the building of a new world within the shell of the old, rather than waiting for social circumstances to change. The Christian should simply begin living according to a new set of values.        In 1932, Peter Maurin met a young woman in New York named Dorothy Day. For some years, Dorothy had been trying to find her path, a way of reconciling her new-found Catholic faith with her deep commitment to social action. With the arrival of Peter Maurin, she felt that her prayers had been answered. He told her to start a newspaper which would present Catholic social teaching and provide for greater clarity of thought, and then to open “houses of hospitality” where the works of mercy could be concretely practiced. And this is precisely what she did. Together Day and Maurin founded the Catholic Worker Movement. They operated soup kitchens and bread lines for the poor, and invited homeless people to stay with them. Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day remind us that we simply cannot love Christ without concretely loving those most in need. Love of Christ and love of neighbor coincide. Heaven and earth must come together.

THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Christ calls upon us because

  He has no hands but your hands to do his work today.

   He has no feet but your feet to lead folks in his way.

   He has no lips but your lips to tell them how he died.

   He has no love but your love to brings them to his side.

                                                                          unknown

Jesus the Homeless

  "  At Christmas time several years ago, Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz noticed a homeless person a corner in downtown Toronto, so wrapped up in a sleeping bag to keep warm that he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. This is Jesus was Schmalz' first reaction.

   The Catholic artist decided to create a bronze sculpture of the tired Jesus, wrapped in a blanket except for his feet.  Despite the artist's hope to place a homeless Jesus in every major city, the statue had difficulty finding a home.  In Schmalz' home Diocese of Toronto, st. Michael's Cathedral declined to accept the statue.  St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York also turned it down.

   But when Pope Francis blessed the sculpture at one of his weekly general audiences and called it a "beautiful piece of art:, interest in the bronze sculpture increased.

   Today the Jesus the Homeless statue (which is based on Chapter 25 of Matthew) can be found in several locations, including Chicago, Rome, North Carolina and at the University of Toronto's Regis College."

This Lent - can we find Jesus the Homeless in our thoughts and what we do for those in need?

(1.)  from The Little Black Book, Six-minute meditations on the Passion according to Luke

PMC and the FoodBank

The Akron/Canton Regional FoodBank is somewhat a "silent partner" with PMC. While we are truly blessed with five parishes and one private organization providing meals, and contributions from various churches,  the provisions we draw from the FoodBank are critical to rounding out our meals and keeping our food costs low.

How low from the FoodBank  in year 2014? 

*  our average cost on all purchases was .10 per pound.

*  our total cost for all provisions was 6.7 cents on the dollar.

Our overall stats:

Meals served:  16,459  (year 2013 10,000). This includes our meals served in the Dinning Hall, meals to our tented citizens on Saturday and Thursday meals to the Miller Avenue Youth Program.

These statistics are important only because of the team of volunteers who prepare for and put the meals together.

Who are they:  Tom Smith, managing the kitchen; Don Roese, Mickey Mader and Dawn Hosick coordinating the selection of provisions needed, and placing and picking up the orders each week.

So .. praise God for the wonderful resource of the Akron/Canton Regional FoodBank. When you receive a plea in the mail asking for support of this non-profit organization, please consider a donation.

Joe May

Chairman

Help PMC Sleep-Over Program

When the wind-chill reaches 0 degrees our Center is open overnight to accommodate our unsheltered citizens. We have been open as needed through January, and the forecast indicates that we will be open through the balance of February.

The cost to operate overnight, beyond our scheduled day program, is not covered in our budget.

We invite you to sponsor one (or multiple) overnight guest(s), or an entire overnight so that we keep our shelter available for the duration.

Sponsor a guest for $20 per person per night.
Sponsor an entire overnight for $300.

You may write a check to PMC Overnight   P.O. Box 1105  Hudson Ohio 44236.

Your financial assistance is greatly appreciated  (We operate without government or foundation funding; all our costs are met through individual and organization contributions).