Following The Spirit's Lead

In 1992, when the civil war was raging in the former Yugoslavia between the Serbs and Croatians, two brothers , Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow, watched the news reports with horror at the loss of human life. Knowing they couldn’t just sit at home in Scotland and do nothing about it, they began a drive to collect food and blankets to deliver to the victims of that conflict. When they had collected enough to fill up their jeep, they drove it all the way to Bosnia, left the supplies with an aid agency there and drove back to Scotland.

In their minds, they had done all they could and would return home to continue their work as fish farmers. However, they found that, while they were gone, people had continued to donate supplies, enough to fill their jeep again. So they collected it all and drove back to Bosnia with it. This continued to the point that Magnus decided to leave his job and begin a charity, which he called Scottish International Relief, dedicated to providing relief to the people of Bosnia.

Magnus continued in that work up until 2002 when he took a trip to Malawi. While there, he visited a mother of six who was dying of AIDS. As they sat around her on the floor of the hut, Magnus turned to her older child and asked him what he hoped for out of life. The child responded, “To have enough to eat and to go to school one day.”

The child’s answer struck Magnus to the core of his being. Like that day 10 years earlier, he knew he couldn’t sit back and do nothing in the face of the hunger and poverty plaguing the children of Africa. So, he developed a simple, low-cost program to provide daily meals for poor, undernourished children which he named, Mary’s Meals, after the mother of Jesus. It began by feeding 200 children daily in Malawi. In the sixteen years since, it has spread to twelve countries servicing over one million children every day.

Saint Paul tells us in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Romans that “all creation is groaning.” It is groaning with the cries of undernourished children who go to bed hungry. It is groaning with the grieving of boys and girls who lose their parents to war and disease. It is groaning with the tears of migrants who are fleeing corruption and violence to seek a better life for their families. Many times, we choose not to listen to their groaning and look away. Many times we choose the attitude that there’s nothing we can do or that it’s someone else’s problem.

Magnus and his brother heard the groaning of those who were suffering. It would have been easy for them to sit back and decide that there was nothing that could be done. However, they couldn’t turn a deaf ear to the groaning of their sisters and brothers in pain. At the time they might have wondered what difference a jeep-full of supplies could make to a conflict as extensive as the Bosnian war. As it turns out, it made all the difference in the world to that child who would have been cold if not for the blanket they brought or who would have gone hungry if not for the food they delivered. And today, that small act of service has led to a mission that feeds over one million children a day.

What would happen in our lives and in our world if we were to really listen to the groaning of the people around us and respond to their needs? How many people might  we be able to help? And where might it possibly all lead?

Saint Paul goes on to say that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought.” In the face of so much suffering in our world, we might think that we have too little to give. However, if we turn to God in prayer, great things are possible. When we rely only on ourselves and our meager resources, our efforts are largely ineffective. However, when we rely on God, when we turn to Him with humility and confess that we want to do something but we don’t know how, He provides the opportunity and the means for us to make a difference. If we are willing to take that first step in faith, God will do the rest.

It all begins with prayer. The more in tune we are to God through prayer the more attentive we will be to the needs of the people around us. Our Heavenly Father hears the cry of the poor. That is why He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us. In turn, Jesus and the Father send us the Holy Spirit, who meets our deepest need for loving unity with God. Now God sends us to relieve the groaning of the people He puts in our path every day.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles to empower them to spread the Good News. We received that same Spirit at our baptism and confirmation. The Spirit dwelling within us opens our ears to the groaning of all creation and empowers us to make a difference. If we but listen and respond, nothing will be impossible because it is the very Spirit of God at work in us who believe.