The Hidden Epidemic of Hunger

Reflection for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time by FAN Executive Director, Stephen Schneck

This reflection was originally posted in our July 17th newsletter

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Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

In these days of COVID, food has become profound in ways we could not have imagined a year ago.

So many of us were baking our own bread that, for a time, yeast and bread flour were hard to find. So many of us planted vegetable gardens that seed companies ran out seed. Wary of restaurants, we cooked at home at levels not seen since our grandparents’ days. And, those dinners at home, with the family around the table, took on the kind of glow that many of us had only read about in old literature.

We cooked what comforted, old recipes passed down generations. We said grace. We thanked God, and blessed those who planted and harvested, those who bravely worked in grocery stores, and those who cooked and prepared the table.

The Sunday readings speak in a special way to our moment’s newfound appreciation of food.

The Gospel from Matthew retells the miracle of loaves and fishes, how Jesus out of his compassion for the hungry multiplied food enough for a few into meals that satisfied all who were without.

Sunday’s first reading from Isaiah, similarly, invites those who hunger to come and have their fill. The prophet writes…

You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!

Jesus and the prophets were not concerned about who deserves food or who is the ‘poorest’, they simply spread love and compassion by providing food for all without question.

These days of COVID have also revealed to many of us the hidden epidemic of hunger in America. Food banks are struggling to meet the present demands. We saw some farmers plowing under their fields because of difficulties in getting crops to markets.

Even before America’s virus crisis, forty million of our brothers and sisters struggled with hunger. One in six children in our country did not know where they’d find their next meal. The Hunger epidemic did not start with COVID, our country had already left behind those impoverished with it’s ineffective welfare programs, tax cuts for the rich and a very low federal minimum wage. But COVID has amplified the epidemic, and, the current administration has also made moves to implement sharp cuts to SNAP (food stamp) benefits – this, while the virus rampages, while people are struggling to return to work, and while demand for emergency food relief is near an all time high.

As we gather with our families for dinner on this warm summer’s evening, let us look anew at the table spread before us. What a miracle it is! Reflect on the lessons from Matthew and Isaiah. Bless those whose labors have brought food to our table, contemplating the risks that some have taken in doing so. Thank God for the bounty of the earth, which is His garden, created for us to tend.

Let us also remember the millions around us who struggle with hunger even now. And, inspired by the multiplication of loaves and fishes, let us resolve that none among us may know hunger.

Stephen Schneck
FAN Executive Director