What a joy it is to experience a little more of the sun’s warmth and light each day. Now that we are just about done facing the outward challenges of winter, there is a new inward challenge for us - the Lenten season. It is a time of reflection that leads to an opening of the heart.

Remembering that Jesus’ disciples initially felt hopelessness and despair after His crucifixion, we examine our own doubts and failings, and all the things that keep us from God. Only then are we ready to see the truth of the Resurrection – that love is greater than our worst fears, greater even than death! This is when the real rejoicing begins.

In a similar way, the homeless and hungry who visit the St. Francis Breadline live constantly on the edge between the fear of broken promises and the hope of new life. They have suffered in ways most of us can hardly imagine. And yet there is a voice inside that whispers, “keep going, you can make it… you are not alone.”

Visitors to our Breadline are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, all of them children of God. Growing up they never dreamed of living on the streets, suffering from physical or mental illness, getting laid off, or falling so far that they would have to ask a stranger for their next meal.

As much as it hurts to suffer this way, it hurts even more to be treated as if you’re invisible. This, our friends tell us time and time again, is why there is such tremendous gratitude for our Breadline and other ministries for the poor. They are in a place of pain – and you and I have the ability to do something about it.