Last month Save the Children issued a report on the effect of the pandemic on American children. Not surprisingly, the worst five states for children are Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico. The best states were Minnesota, Utah, New Hampshire, Washington, and North Dakota. New Jersey ranked 17 of the 50 states in the Nation.
One in four children in Louisiana do not have enough to eat. One in four. Appalling and. shameful. Just over 13 percent of New Jersey children do not have enough to eat. And New Jersey is the third wealthiest state in the Nation. Our median income is $81,740, which means half of New Jersey households make more – more – than that amount.
Repentance is not just wallowing in our sins. It is making changes in our lives, in the lives of the children who are hungry. There is no excuse for 13 percent of our children being hungry. The answer is not just food pantries. Our repentance should be a total restructuring of our society so that children are not hungry,
Prayer for the Day
Searching for the light, O God, often we find only the shadows,
Failing to do the good we mean to do wet acquiesce to evil.
Knowing we fall short of our goals and your promise,
We come to you in contrition and ask forgiveness.
Move us from hopelessness to determination
So we live life more fully as you intended.
We ask this in the name of him who came to bring us new life
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Thoughts for the Day
There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than how it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela, the man who forgave his captors (1918-2013)
It is the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so you can live as you wish.
- Mother Teresa, saint (1910-1997)
Give justice to the weak and the orphan, maintain the right of the lowly and destitute,
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Psalm 82: 3-4