19 CRAISTER STREET ● P.O.

BOX 85 ●
MTHATHA 5100
EASTERN CAPE ● SOUTH AFRICA
☎ 047-5322914 / 047-5326301 ● FAX: 047-5322914
✉ ssipuka@worldonline.co.za

A Pastoral letter calling for the feeding of the

hungry

INTRODUCTION
"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me
drink. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these,
you did it to me.’ Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of
the least of these, you did not do it to me" (Mt. 45:35,40,45)

Dear Brothers and Sisters

This pastoral letter follows the decision of the last meeting of priests
and pastoral workers to embark on the work of mercy to feed the
hungry in our Diocese, starting in this year of 2017 and onwards.
The appeal for this work of mercy is motivated by the fact that there
are hungry people in our Diocese and our faith and tradition oblige
us to feed the hungry.

THE REALITY OF HUNGRY PEOPLE IN OUR DIOCESE

While we all look the same when we worship together in Church,
our reality back in our homes is not the same. Some of us come
from homes that are able to afford regular meals, while some of us
do not know where the next meal will come from when they get
home. In our Church some of us are hungry.

Many of us have been hit by the experience of hunger in our

interaction with others, e.g. when we visit homes and when we drive
and walk in the streets. Let me share some of my experiences.
1. A Hungry girl
I am working till late in my office, and around 10pm, I drive
to my house. As I stop in front of the office gate waiting for
the car with the right of way to pass, one of the girls who
sells her body in the streets comes next to my car and
when I open the window she greets me and goes on to say,
"buy me" I tell her "no I do not do that", and she says to
me, "please give R10.00 I am hungry"

2. A Hungry Woman
I am at Savoy Spar in the evening to buy cereals and fruit,
and I notice a barefooted lady with worn out clothes and
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hungry appearance who keeps looking at me, holding a
loaf of brown bread. Finally she approaches me and asks
me to help her pay for the bread. In addition to bread, we
take a few other items of food and I pay for them, and I
drive her to Pola Park where she stays. When we arrive, we
struggle to get matches to light, and when we eventually
succeed to get light, I discover that her place of abode is a
shack of about 3X3 meters cramped with a bed, a small
table with a flame stove, pots and dishes and a washing
basket in the corner. She tells me she now needs paraffin
to cook, and on my way home, I drive again with her to the
“spaza” shop where she buys the paraffin.
3. A Hungry Man
I am walking from the office to my house for lunch. I pass
the corner of Leeds and Stanford Streets where garbage
plastic bags are dumped. There is a barefooted man in
shabby clothes scavenging. I invite him to my house.

I am sure many of us can tell many similar stories, but the point of
these experiences is that there is hunger out there if we care to
notice.

LEARNING HOW TO RESPOND TO HUNGER FROM JESUS

As we are faced with this reality of hunger in our Diocese, which is
a miniature of the reality of the whole country, let us look to Jesus
and learn from him what we should do.

1. Feeding of the Hungry: A condition to enter the

Kingdom.
The account of Jesus feeding the hungry is recorded in all the four
Gospels (cf. Mt. 14:13-21, Mk 6:30-44, Lk. 9:10-17 and Jn. 6:1-15)
which indicates to us that the feeding of the hungry is an essential
element of living out our Faith in Jesus. It is for this reason that
Jesus puts the feeding of the hungry as a condition for us entering
his Kingdom.

2. Jesus reached out to the hungry

Jesus reached out to people and discovered from first-hand
experience their need for food and provided it. The lesson here is
that unless we go out and meet people where they are, we will
never understand their need. Unless we avail ourselves to the
experience of the poor and hungry, their plight will not hit us.
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Hearing from TV news and reading from the comfort of our
houses, convents and presbyteries about the poor and the hungry
will only make us curious and momentarily sympathetic.

It is for this reason that Pope Francis in his well publicised

encyclical Evangeli Gaudium and in many of his talks and sermons
calls us as Church to reach out to others instead of being closed in
ourselves. “If we wish to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, we
have to reach out to others and seek their good” (EG 9). As we
know, Pope Francis, with his many unprecedented visits to
unexpected places and people is leading us by example in reaching
out to the poor and the hungry.

I therefore invite all the Parishes and Convents to make an effort to

identify hungry people within the borders of their territory and to
reach out to them with the assistance that will alleviate their
physical hunger. I particularly direct this invitation to the youth,
many of whom are bored at home because they have no work or
opportunity to go to school. I invite them to occupy themselves by
reaching out to the hungry. Let us reach out!

3. Jesus reacted with Compassion

Reaching out to hungry people will lead us to be compassionate as
Jesus was when he said to his disciples: "I have compassion for
these people; they have already been with me three days and have
nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they
may collapse on the way."(Mt.15:32) and after that he fed them.

When we take trouble to be with the hungry, we will know from

experience what it means to be hungry and that experience will jolt
us to want to do something. As Pope Francis insightfully observes,
not being aware of the plight of the poor, "we end up being
incapable of feeling compassion" (EG 54).

4. Jesus Fed the Hungry with Dignity and Care

It was after being with the crowd talking with them, healing them
and teaching them that he fed them afterwards. This means that our
feeding of the poor must be preceded by engagement with them as
persons first, talking with them as Jesus did and then share food
with them. In this way, we will not be "throwing food at them", but
personally responding to their need as fellow brothers and sisters.
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Although Jesus fed the crowds with simple food, he treated them
with dignity. He asked the disciples to make them sit down, gave
the food to the disciples to distribute and instructed the disciples to
collect the leftovers.

The lesson here is that as we feed the hungry, we should do so with

care and respect. When we have identified hunger, we need to
determine what type of food is needed, is it soup or food parcels;
and to give these without making the beneficiaries feel humiliated.

5. Jesus invites us to feed the hungry

When the disciples asked Jesus to release the people so that they
can buy food for themselves, he told them "You yourselves must
give them something to eat".

Like the Apostles, we can give many reasons to avoid feeding the
hungry; we could say "what we have is not enough" or "the
government should do something" or "the poor will always be
there", etc. We are called not to accept poverty and hunger as an
inevitability and not to give in to the temptation that there is nothing
we can do about it.

Pope Francis explains Jesus' statement that we must ourselves

give hungry people something to eat as meaning three things,
namely "to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to
promote the integral development of the poor, as well as small
daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we
encounter" (EG 188).

If we start with the last point, what the Pope means is that as we
meet hungry people, we do something to make sure that they eat.
We could to this by:
 Inviting the hungry person to come and eat with us
 Sharing part of our grocery or cooked food with the person
we see to be hungry
 Source food to be distributed on a regular basis, which
could take the form of cooked food e.g. soup kitchen or
food parcels.

Secondly we must empower the hungry people to feed themselves,

and we can do this by:
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 Educating hungry people to produce their own food
through programmes and projects.

Thirdly we must work on creating conditions that will ensure that

there are no hungry people. This is what the Pope means when he
says "eliminate the structural causes of poverty". We can do this by:
 Informing ourselves through research, study and discussion
about structural causes of poverty.
 Challenging Political and Social order that lead to unequal
distribution of food.

6. Jesus instructs us not be wasteful

After Jesus had fed the crowds, he instructed his disciples to collect
the remained food so that nothing is wasted. This instruction of
Jesus is a reminder that while there are so many people who are
hungry, there is a lot of food that is wasted. With the food that we
waste we could feed many people. This calls us therefore to
become aware of the waste of food in our life and to stop it.

7. Jesus calls people beyond physical food

As Jesus told the devil who was tempting him in the desert that
"man does not live on bread alone", in feeding the crowds, he had
hoped to draw them to a deeper hunger for God. That is why when
they were looking for him only for the physical food, he was
disappointed in them and told them ", “Truly, truly, I say to you, you
are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate
your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for
the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give
to you" Jn 6:26.

Similarly, as we engage in the task of feeding the hungry, without

wanting to force people we feed to be Catholics, we must find ways
of communicating to them what motivates us to engage in the work
of feeding the hungry. Among other things that we could do is to:
1. Inform people about our identity and tell them that we
follow Jesus' instruction in feeding them
2. Have a poster with a biblical text or Holy Picture displayed
where we distribute food.
3. Say a prayer or read a short biblical text before distributing
food.
4. Remain open to share about our faith to those who are
interested.
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PRACTICALITIES OF FEEDING THE HUNGY
1. Establish a committee consisting of a representative from
each group in the Parish that reports to the PPC.
2. Decide how to involve the whole Parish
3. Decide whether you will collaborate with the nearby parish
or do it on your own
4. Decide whether you will collaborate with the existing group
that is already doing it, or do it on your own
5. Decide what form of feeding of the hungry the parish will be
involved in, cooked food or food parcels
6. Decide on how to procure the food
7. Decide on the method of distribution in terms of place, days
and time

CONCLUSION
The reality of hungry people is with us, and Jesus is calling us to
respond to this need. We are called to reach out to the hungry with
compassion and care that respects their dignity. The first thing we
are called to do is to meet the immediate need of hunger, and
secondly to participate in the struggle against the elimination of the
structural conditions of hunger.

We need to work out practical structures for feeding the hungry

because as the letter of St. James challenges us, we cannot say to
"a brother or sister who is poorly clothed and lacking in daily
food 'go in peace, be warmed and filled' without giving them
the things needed for the body" James 2:15-16. What we do or
fail to do in feeding the hungry, we do or fail to do it to Jesus.

I bless you all!

Bishop Sithembele Sipuka

Bishop of Mthatha