Message for the 27th Caritas Sunday

The Most Rev. Francis Xavier Ahn Myeong-ok, President of the CBCK Committee for "Caritas Coreana", issued a message for the 27th Caritas Sunday on Dec. 12, 2010 with the title of "For almsgiving expiates every sin (Tob. 12,9), your almsgiving remembered before God (Acts 10,31)."

Bishop Ahn expressed his gratitude to the faithful who sincerely live their life with firm faith for salvation and evangelization of the world with divine love.

Because of the global financial crisis, he said that, many people are suffering from financial difficulty, and more and more people cannot manage their lives with dignity. These days, people are not able to take time for inner reflection as they are full of greed and desire. This might be resulted from living "without hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2, 12).

He also said that people will choose the life with God if they know who God is. In addition, he expressed that the most important thing is to know God and to know Jesus who God sent to us because God always abides with us, remembers us, and never leaves us alone.

He reminded the faithful in this message that the faithful should practice love for neighbors in order to know and love God.

He emphasized that we should be a mother for our poor neighbours on behalf of the Church as the Church is our Mother. He also reminded us that we should give neighbours in proportion to what we have.

In conclusion, he gave his words to make a way of love and share the difficulty of the poor around us because the work of God is love. He also said that he would pray for the faithful to live in divine happiness.