Send Christmas Joy to the Needy this Holiday Season
November 12, 2009
Night comes early to the rundown house where little Janequa lives, out in the shadowy woods of rural Alabama. Once the sun sets, the house goes dark. There’s been no electricity since her father was laid off two months ago.
For little Janequa, this poses a big worry.
“How will Santa find my house?” Janequa asked her teacher, Miss Carolyn, as she boarded the Missions’ preschool van before daylight. “Does he have a big flashlight?”
Janequa’s home sits deep in dense pines, miles down a narrow winding and pitted county road. There are no streetlights; no yardlights.
The house she lives in was built from simple materials her grandfather put together over 50 years ago. It hasn’t aged well. Windowpanes are cracked and floorboards warped. The bathroom plumbing doesn’t work. The roof leaks. There’s no heater, just a hand-hewn fireplace.
Now, without a paycheck, her family has had to stop making even the simplest repairs. A few candles dimly light the house at night.
Tough times have hit rural communities hard. Too many hungry families, elders and children, who live without even basic necessities, will face empty cupboards and no boxes or bows on Christmas morning. There are no Christmas gifts when there are no jobs.
I remember my father telling me about his childhood Christmases when there were no gifts. As a little boy, he was afraid he had done something wrong and that’s why Santa neglected him. He was too young to know that it was the Depression and my grandparents were dirt poor.
I don’t want Janequa and other children to be let down as my father was, thinking they have been bad when there are no gifts on Christmas morning. I want them to know the great big love God has for each and every one of us.
Father Frank Casey, our founder, faced a similar dilemma during his early Christmases in the Deep South. The year was 1939 at the start of the Great Depression. The farmland was devastated by the boll weevil which had destroyed the state’s main source of income, cotton.
Celebrating the love of the Christ Child, Father Casey borrowed money so he could give each child a simple gift. He then invited over two hundred people for a Christmas meal at the Missions house. He counted the smiles as “heavenly joy” for the Edmundite Fathers that holiday.
I need your help to bring Christmas joy to the children, elders and families we serve. The Sisters at our rural pantries will fill Christmas food bags for over 500 families. On the day of Christmas, we will prepare a traditional home-cooked dinner at Bosco Food Kitchen in Selma. What a joy it will be to see the faces of three hundred children, men and women light up when they receive plates filled with Christmas ham, sweet potatoes, green beans and cornbread.
Please help me shine the light and hope of our Savior’s birth to those in need this Christmas. Your gift of $12 will buy simple gifts for four children. You can show little children that God’s love overcomes even the darkness of winter days. A gift of $53 will buy Christmas hams for four families.
I will joyfully and thankfully remember you and your loved ones in a special Mass on Christmas Day. I treasure your prayers for our ministry and the poor we are privileged to serve, as we share the comforting words of the Angel: Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:10-11.
Serving the Savior,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
