“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).
When we participate in the Catholic Relief Services’(CRS) Rice Bowl Campaign during the Lenten season, we are a visible representation of the Matthew 25:35 Scripture. Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl campaign is the Lenten program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Lent is a liturgical season to direct our focus on the three spiritual pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. During this 40-day journey of Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Holy Week, we are encouraged to prepare for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection through sacrifice and spiritual reflection. CRS Rice Bowl supplies the tools we need in one tiny cardboard box to pray, learn and make a difference. The CRS Rice Bowl website, https://www.crsricebowl.org/, provides an opportunity to connect our prayers to concrete examples of Catholic social teaching exemplified through stories of families from Honduras, the Philippines, and Kenya who are overcoming hunger and the impacts of climate change. This year CRS will teach about the root causes of hunger and how families, with the support of faith communities like ours, are ensuring they have nutritious food to thrive.
Our community will learn about our Gospel call to care for our home so we can respond to global issues such as hunger and malnutrition and push back on climate change.
This Lent when we make the conscious decision to bring our lunch to work or skip visiting our local coffee shop so that we can give those few dollars to CRS Rice Bowl, we are supporting poor and vulnerable countries with 75 percent of those funds. In addition, the remaining 25 percent of the funds stay within the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux to assist with social ministries that serve those in need in local parishes.
The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux has participated in the CRS Rice bowl for decades. Please join us in continuing this beautiful spiritual tradition supporting the fight against hunger and climate change here at home and abroad. (Chamon Williams is the executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux.)