Lent Appeal 2023
This Lent, you can help families around the world to cope with the climate crisis.
Rupali has hopes for her ecovillage to be a place where all people have food security and live in harmony with nature.
“Go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering. ”
Today Jesus challenges us to be reconcilers. If I am bringing my gift to the altar and then remember that someone has something against me, I should leave my gift and try to restore the relationship.
The message is clear: right relationship with God demands right relationship with our sisters and brothers. We cannot have one without the other. We are each called to be aware of how our actions and attitudes affect the lives of others.
Farmer Rupali, from southern Bangladesh, offers a beautiful vision of what this right relationship can look like when she speaks of her hopes for life in her eco-village:
“An eco-village is not just a place where organic farming exists and you have a chemical-free environment – it’s also where we have respect for all, young and old, and people of all professions have food security and economic security, and our natural environment, including trees and animals, can exist in harmony. Everyone here should be in peace, and they should be able to say with a smile that they are well and mean it.”
Today is Family Fast Day. As we eat simply today, in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, let’s pray that we will grow in right relationship with the earth, our global family and with God.
Lent prayer
God of love,
guide me to heal broken relationships,
and to live faithfully,
growing in love for you
and my neighbour.
Amen.
Act
Today on Family Fast Day, eat simply and donate the money you save. Your donation can give more families like Rupali’s the tools and training they have requested to fight the climate crisis and create a better future.