Operation Rice Bowl: A Lenten Tradition
Week 3: India
This week we visit India, where our pilgrimage takes us to a school in Calcutta supported by Catholic Relief Services. There we’ll meet 14-year-old Pailash who has left a life on the streets for the opportunity to study math and plan a different sort of future for himself.
More than 1.1 billion people live in this South Asian country, whose geographic size is a little over a third of that of the United States. India boasts top medical, engineering, information technology, and management schools with graduates assuming leadership positions around the world; yet, up to 100 million children are estimated to be out of school. Many of them — especially girls — are forced into horrendous working and living conditions. In India, 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Pray
Sometimes we can be so used to our present condition that we can’t even imagine what we’re really thirsty for. In Sunday’s Gospel a Samaritan woman is startled into acknowledging her own deep thirst for union with God. From the outset the woman’s encounter with Jesus breaks all the social and religious rules she knows about who is clean and unclean and who is favored by God and who is not. After one conversation with Jesus, the woman is no longer drawn to the stagnant water of the village well; flowing water would be better. And the stagnant social and religious order that limits her own sense of dignity no longer suffices; the living water of relationship with a God who knows and loves her is what she really desires. It all begins with Jesus upsetting the established routines and social norms enough to allow deeper needs to surface and new possibilities to be considered. This week, ask God to upset your routine. Take a hard look at familiar rituals such as how you get to work or school, how you obtain food and water, how you spend money, whom you spend the most time with and whom you pass by. Ask God to help you examine these daily practices with new eyes: what do they reveal about your own sense of human dignity? How are they connected to people in poverty locally and globally? How do they contribute to the health of Earth?
Fast:
The Lenten fast has its roots in the idea that preparing for Easter should involve giving up sinful habits that kill the soul. The idea was that if you could give up such behaviors for 40 days, you could probably give them up indefinitely. This week, seek to transform some of the elements of your daily routine into practices that sustain Earth and address structures that impoverish people. You might consider driving your car less to help preserve the environment, frequenting stores that promote fair labor practices, replacing time spent watching commercial television program with time spent volunteering in the community.
Learn:
How are people in poverty affected by the decisions we make and the social structures we uphold? This is the question that must be asked when we make a “preferential option for the poor”. It is a question that Catholic social teaching requires us to keep in mind not only in our daily routines, but in our lives as citizens. Opting for the poor is at the heart of the mission of relief and development organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, whose work includes analyzing the root causes of poverty and creating opportunities that provide a route out.
For 14-year-old Pailash of Calcutta, plans for a new life are tied to an education. An orphan who was paralyzed by polio, he had spent much of his childhood selling newspapers on the streets. When a friend brought him to a school supported by Catholic Relief Services, Pailash found himself in a place where he no longer had to worry about where he was to sleep or where his next meal would come from. Instead he can study math, and he can play the bongos in the school orchestra. And Pailash can plan for a hopeful future that includes moving on to an all-boys school that will help him learn a trade, find a job and make a good living.
Give
Going to school is an undeniable part of the daily routine of young people in the United States. If you are school age, place a penny in your Rice Bowl for each day you have been in school so far this year. Have you completed your education? Drop in a quarter for each year of schooling you’ve had the privilege to complete.
