The People are Starving

Gospel: Luke 6: 1-5

Across the globe people starve and those with excess and plenty hoard for themselves, restricting access to food, health care, and other necessities of life for everyone else.  We may hold a canned goods drive here and there, but by and large the needs are not met and the people continue to go without, continue to live with the pangs of hunger and hearts of desperation.

Across the globe fewer and fewer people have access to the sacraments, and people starve spiritually.  We continue to restrict ordination to pseudo-celibate men who reject the permanent diaconate, laypeople distributing communion to those in hospitals and shut-ins, and any other opportunity to expand access to the sacraments.  The people starve and we restrict access to spiritual food even further.

Today's Gospel reminds us that the needs of the people are of greater importance than the privileges of the rich and the arbitrary privileges of the ordained who think God only for themselves.  The people are starving.  What are we going to do about it?  That is the challenge of today's Gospel.  That is our call to answer.