A few weeks ago my homily spoke of feeding "the poor of the world."  I spoke of experts who say that there is enough food available so that everyone in the world would have a sufficient amount of food to eat every day.  Unfortunately, we know that there are factors which prevent this from happening.  As efforts continue to make it more and more possible for everyone to be fed with nobody dying from malnutrition, most of us can do something to feed the hungry (as Jesus calls us to do through the parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25).  

On the international level, I would encourage contributions to Catholic Relief Services (CRS).  It is feeding starving people and providing tools and opportunities for people to be fed through their own continuing efforts.  On the local level, we have the opportunity to feed the hungry through the Jackson House in Hot Springs.  PLEASE join some of your fellow parishioners who either bring nonperishable food items to church on the weekend for Jackson House or put money in the wooden box marked Jackson House in the narthex.  The potential for a significant amount of food and monetary contributions is great given the fact that on average, we have 850-900 people coming into this church for Mass every weekend.  If everyone just gave a little bit on a regular basis, the number of people fed through the Jackson House would be significant.  I pray that more of you (hopefully MANY more of you) will answer the call of Jesus to feed the hungry.