We hope, as a parish, to begin a Welcome Home Program for ex-felons looking for a new start. Two weeks ago, we had a workshop on the overwhelming reality of Global Poverty. Information about the Millennium Development Goals developed by the United Nations and endorsed by the U.S. Catholic Bishops is forthcoming.

Some of these goals include achieving universal primary education, reducing the child mortality rate, improving maternal health, etc. We are even looking into chartering a bus (in conjunction with "Helping Hands") to New Orleans to help with the lingering and devastating efforts of Hurricane Katrina.

Supporting our elderly with the basic necessity of affordable housing by getting them on the waiting list of the soon to be built Victory Housing and supporting unwed and abandoned young mothers through the Gabriel Project are all ways that we can demonstrate that human suffering is not a hand of cards dealt by God for some but not to others (his favorites).

No. If you have been spared from homelessness, extreme poverty, civil war, exploitation and abuse ~ this is not a sign of God's favor for you ~ it is God crying out to you! It is his mandate from heaven to get busy relieving the suffering of others. And to do so as if YOUR own life depended on it! Because, it does! (Read Matthew 25:31-46).