“Do whatever he tells you.”
Those were Mary’s words to the servants in last Sunday’s Gospel, which spoke of Christ’s first miracle, the beginning of His earthly ministry, at the wedding at Cana. It’s a story many of us recall from years of hearing it from the ambo. As with everything we read or hear from the Bible, though, God’s message to us is timeless and ever unfolding.
The Gospel account of the wedding at Cana starts with Mary recognizing a need. In San Antonio and the rest of Bexar County, there’s a giant need that’s being addressed in part by a Christian organization called the South Texas Alliance for Orphans. Like Mary knowing what might lie ahead for the newlyweds if their wine runs out, the Alliance knows what can happen when foster and adoptive families and all those who work tirelessly to serve vulnerable children lack the support of a good community.
So they’ve sought out Christ’s hand in turning this crisis of care into a miracle. They’ve gone to Christian churches in the area and asked them to surround these kids and the families that care for them with the charity they need to keep going. They also hope to increase the number of families willing to offer themselves as a gift to a foster child by building up groups who can help each other through the process.
But so far, there’s only one Catholic church on that list. Don’t get me wrong, we have an amazing amount of Catholic organizations in the area and across the world already serving the poor, and particularly orphans. We’ve done it for literally centuries. But when was the last time you or your family did something for a similar organization besides offering funding?
Here at CraftyCatholicMoms, we thought it was the perfect week to really dig in and find something more tangible than an online donation to reignite our passion for defending life. After all, it’s our Catholic Church that most famously defends the right of women to live out their womanhood by accepting life when it comes. It is the Church who will never ever change its stance on the importance of the human person from womb to tomb. It is the Catholic Church who has Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, just waiting to strengthen us for this journey into the messiness of the everyday and miraculously turn a crisis into a celebration of life just as He did at the wedding at Cana.
Why now? Today begins the 9 Days for Life, when we, as the Catholic Church in this nation, are invited to come together and arm ourselves with a novena to ask for the intercession of the Holy Trinity and the Communion of Saints to bring our culture to an understanding of what it means to protect all human life as the gift that it is.
We’re praying for hearts to change. We’re praying to know what to do. We’re praying to hear what Christ tells us and then have the courage to do whatever it is. And, of course, we’re also doing far more than praying.
The South Texas Alliance for Orphans makes doing something to respond to that ever-present call to respect life accessible to those of us who need a way to throw who we are into helping. Won’t you join us to find out how?
We’re meeting over Zoom on January 26, the eighth day of the novena for life. You can choose 11 a.m. or 7 p.m.
Strengthened and encouraged by that novena, we’ll brainstorm our unique charisms for helping foster families, kinship families, adoptive families, case workers, and vulnerable kids. If you live outside of Bexar County, we encourage you to seek out similar organizations in your area.
To sign up for the zoom meeting, please fill out the Google form. The Zoom link will then be emailed to you. After we meet, we’ll post another link for another novena and schedule follow-up zoom sessions to address next steps on specific ways you, your families, or your churches want to help.
