Click HERE for a Printable Version

Click HERE for the Animation

"Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own-indeed to embrace all creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.  This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground… a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.

That time is now!"

Wangari Maathai

Following Jesus, as his disciples means looking beyond ourselves and caring for others in all facets of our lives. This Lenten HCA website focuses on prayer, fasting and almsgiving and includes the specific earth themes of hunger and global warming due to excessive practices in our world. It deals directly with looking beyond ourselves to the needs of others.

It is through prayer that we continue our relationship with God, the global church and our global family. It is through fasting that we help to simplify our lives so as to focus on the real meaning of life.  It is through almsgiving that we purposefully share the abundance of God’s blessings with those who live in hunger. This is an opportunity to seriously reflect on our own lives and the impact of how we live that affects others.

Take this Lenten season to feel the bound we hold with our earth and all its people. The actions we take each day impact the lives of all creation. We are called daily to a united effort to promote peace and work for justice - feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for creation, “living more simply, so that others may simply live”. Pray for the needs of others. Fast from careless ways and an overabundance of material goods.  Give alms to the those living in poverty, the homeless, the vulnerable. Renew a simplicity of life….come follow Me….

“You matter! You can make a difference! You face a great moral challenge!" Pope John Paul II

World Hunger

• Hunger is defined as the discomfort, weakness or pain due to lack of food. Continual hunger leads to malnutrition – a lack of enough food to provide energy.
  
• A most recent estimate shows 1.02 billion people (1 in 6 -15% of the world population) are undernourished. Nearly all live in developing countries.
• Children suffer most from malnutrition, suffering up to 160 days of illness each year.
• Nearly 6 million children younger than age 5 die every year because of hunger.
• The growth of 1 in 3 children is stunted by malnourishment – 70% in Asia, 26% in Africa, 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean.
• The world produces enough food to feed everyone, however many people in the world, especially those already displaced, do not have sufficient land to grow, or money to buy enough food.
• Hunger causes poor health, low energy levels, mental impairment and reduces the ability to work and learn which in turn results in poverty.
• 227 of the world’s richest people have incomes that equal the income of 2.7 billion of the world’s poor, which is 40% of all humans on earth.
• Approximately 25,000 people die in serious pain every day from hunger; one person dies every 3.5 seconds/

Global Warming

• Carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases caused by industrialization and pollution are collecting in the atmosphere like a thick cloud that traps the sun’s heat near the earth’s surface causing the earth to warm more than is natural.
• Humans pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it. Deforestation has contributed greatly to this issue.
• Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for many years. Even if this was stopped today it would not stop global warming for years.
• The Earth has experienced warming and cooling cycles naturally every 100,000 years due to orbit shifts. Today’s changes have taken place over the past 100 years or less.
• Over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fasted rate in recorded history. NRDC- National Resources Defense Council

If Global Warming continues at this rate?

• Destruction of the Amazon rainforest, home to nearly 1/3 of the world’s biodiversity rose 40% in 2011. More than 6,000,000 acres of irreplaceable habitat were slashed and burned in the last 12 months. Rainforest Alliance
• Sea level could rise between 7-23 inches by the end of the 21^st century. Rises of 4 inches could flood many South Sea Islands and swamp parts of Southeast Asia. IPCC Feb. 2007 Report
• Some 100 million people live within 3 feet of average sea level. Much of the world’s population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities and they are at risk.
• Glaciers around the world will melt, causing sea levels to rise while causing shortages in regions around the world dependent on runoff for fresh water.
•  More than 1,000,000 species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems and acidifying oceans.

Is Global Warming really a threat?

• The earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
• The rate of warming is increasing. According to climate studies 11 out of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850. IPCC
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing with predictions that the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous creatures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
• By 2020 between 75-250 million people in Africa are projected to be exposed to increase water stress due to climate change. IPCC
• 60% of all ecosystem resources are degraded or used unsustainably. GEO-4Report
• Global warming is the biggest threat to wildlife and wild places.  National Wildlife Federation

Did you know?

As a society we are raising the 1st generation of Americans to grow up disconnected to nature.  Children need to have at least an hour each day of green spaces to explore, imagine and discover nature. Visit www.GreenHour.org for ideas.

Though only 4% of the world population, Americans produce 25% of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning – the largest share of any country. NRDC