Sunday, August 29, 2010

Divine Hospitality

Sunday’s Gospel message was from Luke, where Jesus attends a banquet. He suggests that guests adopt a humble attitude, rather than jockey for positions of honor, and advises the host that it would be better spiritually to invite guests incapable of repaying his generosity – “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”

“Our Lord gives us today a divine way of hospitality,” Fr. Richard Dellos, pastor, told parishioners at Sunday Mass. He also teaches “a humble way of doing things.”

Humility, he said, is the basis of spirituality, and relates to love that is freely given, without thought of repayment.

“That is why our soup kitchen is such a beautiful thing,” Fr. Dellos asserted. It’s about helping the hungry and not expecting anything in return.

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Mother Marianne’s West Side Kitchen has seen a jump in the number of people coming to the soup kitchen this summer, reports Deacon Gil Nadeau, director.

Most of them are kids.

Thus, the need for extra volunteers in the dining room.

Meals served to children average 150 to 200 in a month. But volunteers served 549 meals to kids in June and another 408 meals in July. Total meals for June and July were 2,522 and 2,384, respectively.

A total of 16,133 meals were served year-to-date through July, a 26.15 percent jump over the same period last year – or 3,345 more meals, the deacon reports. And since opening in March 2008, West Side Kitchen has served 58,245 meals.