In 1989, TIME Magazine interviewed Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her work in India, the people she served and her impressions of the western world. She shared that in all of her experiences the “hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
There is an aching hunger within each of us to be loved, but too often we fill it with distractions, entertainment and the promise of financial gain. When the two-fold pain of physical hunger and longing for a relationship, and to be loved, are not fulfilled this impacts the entire person – mind, body and soul. When both of these needs are met we are sustained, fulfilled and healed.
The month of September is Hunger Action Month and contains many opportunities to give not just physical goods like food, although that is clearly necessary. Rather the invitation is to give of ourselves and encounter the other, to those who experience physical poverty, as well as those who experience spiritual poverty.
As a great friend of Mother Teresa once said, “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of self” – Pope St. John Paul II. This understanding of the need for physical and spiritual nourishment can inform our actions each day.
Pray: Jesus, give me the grace to freely encounter those you place before me who need assistance nourishing their mind, body and soul. Amen.
Act: Invite your neighbor to give back to the community by donating canned goods to a local Catholic Charities Food Drive. Click here for more information.
Watch: The Poverty of Loneliness
