For many years in preparing for Lent, St. John’s parish has made the decision to reach out to one particular suffering amid so many in the world. During this season of prayer and giving, our parish has a rich history of sacrificial giving. Last year’s gift was to the parish of St. Margaret Mary on Staten Island, NY for Super Storm Sandy rebuilding. Previous gifts were for famine relief in East Africa and rebuilding and medical supplies in earthquake devastated Haiti. Our Lenten Gift strengthens each of us individually and the parish as a community of faith, as we give witness to Christ’s call to “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Lent’s clarion call to love extravagantly is what Lent is about.
Why Central African Republic?
- St. John’s parishioners connect with causes with great needs or suffering where we can provide relief.
- The Central African Republic (CAR) gift helps to relieve great need for shelter, food and basic materials to “restart” the lives of the thousands who suffer from hunger, disease and insecurity from being displaced from their homes due to civil unrest.
St. John’s personally knows Bishop Nestor-Désiré Nongo Aziagbia of Bossangoa. He is a priest of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (SMA) who was in residence at St. John’s in summer of 2006 while attending Boston College for a master’s degree. Reverend Fr. Tom Powers has remained in contact with Nestor as he returned to his country as a pastor and now as the Bishop of Bossangoa. Bishop Nestor has testified at the United Nations and the US House Subcommittee on Africa.- This project, so far away from Wellesley and to benefit those we will never know, seems to perfectly fit with Pope Francis call for practicing Catholics to realize the grace they have been given and accept responsibility for helping others experience the same grace — especially the poor, the sick and others left on the peripheries or margins of society.
What is the Central African Republic?
The CAR, located in the middle of Africa, gained its independence from France in 1960. The country has a population of approximately 4.5 million, is about the size of Texas and has an average annual income of $800 (one of the poorest countries in the world). The CAR was democratically ruled from 1993 until 2003 when there was a military coup. The government has been marked by corruption, human rights violations and outside country interference. The most recent instability commenced in December 2012 when political rebels, the Selekas, a coalition of rebel Muslim groups as well as mercenaries from neighboring Chad and Sudan, used force to overturn the government and installed their own President. The brutality of the Selekas who destroyed and stole property, killed, abused and tortured civilians gave rise to a large opposition group, Antibabalaka, a local militia groups who identify themselves with the Christians and have committed similar atrocities as the Selekas.
Christian and Muslim church leaders describe the conflict as political and not religious as each group seeks power and control over the country’s significant mineral and natural resources. Newspaper reports put the number of displaced people at over 1.1 million with Bishop Nestor housing and feeding up to 30,000 people on the church grounds. Violence has been somewhat reduced recently as France deployed 1,500 peacekeepers which joined 5,000 African Union peacekeepers. However, this large country remains a very unsettled environment with great need.
This Year’s Gift
We will offering our support to Bishop Nestor and the people of his diocese through Prayer (Petitions of the Faithful and in CCD classes) and a Lenten Gift collection on April 5/6. Proceeds will be transferred to Bishop Nestor safely through his diocese bank account in France. Bishop Nestor will have the discretion to use proceeds to meet immediate needs (food, shelter and medical supplies) as well as long term needs (rebuilding the church and homes) since he is in a fluid situation with such great needs.
How blessed we are to be able to act on Pope Francis’ message to use the grace we have been given to help others attempting to gain hope in rebuilding.
You can find more information on our 2014 Lenten Gift, Bishop Nestor, the Diocese of Bossangoa, and the Central African Republic on our website: Our 2014 Parish Lenten Gift: The Central African Republic
Next Week’s bulletin: Look for additional information on the Central African Republic and the needs.
On the weekend of March 16-17, St. John’s community will collectively make an impact on the Midland Beach, Staten Island community, five months after Storm Sandy, they are still in the process of rebuilding their homes and normalizing their lives. This year, in solidarity with the staff and people of 
Week 4: The Need St. Margaret Mary Parish relief efforts are focused on helping families, like the Rodriguez family who were introduced in last week’s bulletin, to secure supplies to help rebuild “houses” and make them “homes.” Volunteers from both inside and the outside the parish community are volunteering their labor but the basic cost of materials and equipment still need to be covered. A typical rebuilding effort to get a family back in their home with just the basics includes:
