By Sr. Angela Battung, rgs

Sr. Mary Angela Battung, a Filipino missionary in Canada, challenges us, the “neither beautiful nor unbeautiful ones” to get out there and do something for the poor of the world, crying out for help.

In one of his books, Ralph Martin classifies people into two groups; the “beautiful people” who earn lots of money, make scientific discoveries, break sports record, win in elections, people who make headlines. The “unbeautiful people” are the billions of uneducated, impoverished human beings who sleep on a mud floor in one-room hut that cannot protect them form rain or heat. They fight off rats,, steal for food or scavenge in the garbage. The dead bodies of their children and parents lei briefly in the hut, unnamable, covered with flies, quickly buried. I think their is a third group. Those who are neither “beautiful people” nor “unbeautiful people”. They are the ordinary ones, like you and me. We are the ones who look at the “beautiful people” and wonder if they are happy. And who look at the “unbeautiful ones, our hearts full of compassion, yearning to do something for them, actually doing something for them once in a while but feeling helpless and inadequate because our help and efforts seem so small and useless.

They heard the call

Like Mother Teresa, there are some in the third group who have responded to God’s invitation and inspiration and faced these responsibilities for their brothers and sisters. “What you did for one of the least of these who are members of my family you did for me.” (Matt.25:40)

Patrick Zantagni

One good example is Patrick Zantagni who started an NGO in Benin, Africa. He told a group of poor women that if they could present a plan to start their own business and undergo some training, his group loan them some start-up money. These women live in one-room huts. Their husbands dead, they provide for their children and their aging parents from incomes that come from the selling vegetables. They talked and prayed to together then decided to work together and with Patrick’s encouragement the group came up with a plan – to make coconut cooking oil. Their business became a success; it helped them make first step beyond just surviving.

Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer who could have been one of the “beautiful people” left the concert stage in Europe, became a medical doctor, opened a hospital and served Africa’s poor until he died at the age of ninety. He wrote, “Out here, millions love without help or hope of it. Everyday there prevails in many far – off huts a despair we could banish. It is time we face our responsibilities.”

Sr. Mary Elise Rasch

Sr. Mary Elise Rasch was once a team member as the Good Shepherd Sisters. She traveled to many countries to visit and encourage us sisters in our ministries. She witnessed the poverty, the indifference of some governments and the greed of many unscrupulous businessmen and politicians, and the backbreaking hardships of the women to keep the family afloat. She started SHARING FAIR, a marketing project in which the Good Shepherd Sisters here in Canada sell products made by women in developing countries. This project is able to support their families, send their children to school or buy medicine. The products are well-made, creative, beautiful and not expensive. Sr. Elise sums it up like this: “There is a real human being behind each item we sell.

God did something

The Desert Monastics tell the story of a “Seeker” on a prayer run. He met a cripple, then a beggar, and then a victim of violence. And seeing them, the “Seeker” went down, down, down into deep prayer and cried, “Great God! How is it that a Loving Creator can see such things yet do nothing about hem?” And, out of the long, long silence, God said, “I did do something about them, I made you!”