Pope Leo XIV: How Can We Store Up Treasure in Heaven?

 

Image credit: Vatican Media

The following is an extract from the Pope's Angelus address on 10th August:

Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday!

In today’s Gospel Jesus invites us to consider how we will invest the treasure that is our life (cf. Lk 12:32-48). He says: “Sell your possessions and give alms” (v. 33).

He exhorts us not to keep to ourselves the gifts that God has given us, but rather to use them generously for the good of others, especially those most in need of our help. It is not simply a matter of sharing the material goods we have, but putting our skills, time, love, presence and compassion at the service of others. In short, everything in God’s plan that makes each of us a priceless and unrepeatable good, a living and breathing asset, must be cultivated and invested in order to grow. Otherwise, these gifts dry up and diminish in value, or they end up being taken away by those, who like thieves, snatch them up as something simply to be consumed.

The gift of God that we are is not made to be used in such a manner. We need space, freedom and relationships in order to come to fulfillment and express ourselves. We need love, which alone transforms and ennobles every aspect of our existence, making us more and more like God. It is not by chance that Jesus pronounces these words while he is on the road to Jerusalem, where he will offer himself on the cross for our salvation.

The works of mercy are the most secure and profitable bank where we can entrust the treasure of our existence, because there, as the Gospel teaches us, with “two small copper coins” even the poor widow becomes the richest person in the world (cf. Mk 12:41-44).

Read the full, official version here.

How one Gaza family dedicates each day to finding enough food to survive

 

Image credit: religionnews.com

The following is an extract from an article in RNS, Religion News Service by Magdy reporting from Cairo. Read the original article here: How one Gaza family dedicates each day to finding enough food to survive.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Every morning, Abeer and Fadi Sobh wake up in their tent in the Gaza Strip to the same question: How will they find food for themselves and their six young children?

The couple has three options: Maybe a charity kitchen will be open and they can get a pot of watery lentils. Or they can try jostling through crowds to get some flour from a passing aid truck. The last resort is begging.

If those all fail, they simply don’t eat. It happens more and more these days, as hunger saps their energy, strength and hope...

...

The family wakes up in their tent, which Fadi Sobh, a 30-year-old street vendor, says is unbearably hot in the summer. With fresh water hard to come by, his wife Abeer, 29, fetches water from the sea. One by one, the children stand in a metal basin and scrub themselves as their mother pours the saltwater over their heads. Nine-month-old Hala cries as it stings her eyes. The other children are more stoic.

Abeer then rolls up the bedding and sweeps the dust and sand from the tent floor. With no food left over from the day before, she heads out to beg for something for her family’s breakfast. Sometimes, neighbors or passers-by give her lentils. Sometimes she gets nothing.

Abeer gives Hala water from a baby bottle. When she’s lucky, she has lentils that she grinds into powder to mix into the water.

Fadi heads to a nearby soup kitchen. Sometimes one of the children goes with him. “But food is rarely available there,” he said. The kitchen opens roughly once a week and never has enough for the crowds. Most often, he said, he waits all day but returns to his family with nothing “and the kids sleep hungry, without eating.”

Read the full article here: How one Gaza family dedicates each day to finding enough food to survive.