The Moment

My friend and fellow priest Fr Philip Kemmy was being transferred from our parish to a new one. He had been involved with the fledgling Donegal Mary's Meals Support Group and asked me to help them out whenever they needed a little bit of support. So, I began to attend their meetings and got to know the main purpose of Mary's Meals and discovered that I had found a charity that allowed me to do something about the problem of world hunger – rather than just talk about the problem. I realised early on in my relationship with Mary's Meals that even I could make a difference, that even I could be used by God to build up a solution to the disastrous situation that is children going hungry in our world.

The beauty that I discovered in Mary's Meals was the directness. If I raised 11 cents, a child would receive a meal in school. If I could get two euro, 18 children would receive a meal. The hunger would be taken from these little ones for that day. If I could give 22 euro, a child could go to school for a full school year and receive life-changing nourishment that would help that child grow into a healthy and strong young person who, with the education that they were receiving, could help break the cycle of poverty in their community.

Fr Kemmy had asked me to help a little group of 10 people working for Mary's Meals in the north-west of Ireland. However, unknown to him and unknown to me, he was asking me to become part of a big family who seeks to improve the quality of life for all the members of the family. Through Mary's Meals I can make a difference. The old saying ‘it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness’ was proclaimed in his request a thousand and a million times over; in the invitation to get involved, I became part of a family working for an end to world poverty. 
 

This introduction to Mary's Meals became for me a transformation.
•    I would no longer be someone who just spoke about the lousiness of hunger in our world, but I would be a person who would do something to bring about a solution.
•    I would no longer be a weak individual in the middle of nowhere wishing something to be done to help the little children who are suffering, but I would be part of a team with a particular role to play in the effort to eradicate hunger in our world.
•    I would become a volunteer who teams up with other volunteers to make a physical difference to the life of my brothers and sisters within the family of humankind.
•    I would play a role – my role – in a worldwide movement with a steady plan and a beautiful vision and in playing that part, even I would make a difference.
 

There are many challenges for Mary's Meals. The complexities of world hunger are massive. The problems with keeping things running are colossal. The task of being a solution is gigantic. But there is not a day that goes by that I do not thank the Lord God for allowing me to improve the lives of my brothers and sisters. And as I thank the Lord God, I also thank my family members in Mary's Meals for putting up with me as we work together so that children who are going hungry and missing out on an education can find new hope in a daily school meal and simply have the chance to be children.