Pray With the Pope: April 2016

by Chris Chatteris SJ · April 3, 2016

Pray for the farmers

General Intention: That small farmers may receive a just reward for their precious labour.

As a small farmer myself, Pope Francis’ general prayer intention for April is music to the ears. Well, what I call my “farm” is just a large vegetable garden that I tend at St Francis Xavier’s Orientation Seminary in Cape Town.

What started as a hobby has been built up into something that makes a modest contribution to the seminary kitchen, although it could never get anywhere near to satisfying the healthy appetites of our seminarians!

Small farmers, including those now called “urban farmers”, make an important and increasing contribution to the world’s food supply. According to www.greenbiz.com, urban farming now supplies one fifth of the world’s food.

We might think that this applies just to countries in the developing world, but we would be only partly right. While some 40% of urban people in sub-Saharan Africa are engaged in agriculture, community and so-called “squatter gardens” are springing up in empty spaces in the post-industrial cities of the United States and other Western countries.

Can these small urban farms compete with rural agribusiness? It appears that they have some natural advantages, as Greenbiz explains: “Despite their relatively small size, urban farms grow a surprising amount of food, with yields that often surpass those of their rural cousins.

“This is possible for a couple reasons. First, city farms don’t experience heavy insect pressure, and they don’t have to deal with hungry deer or groundhogs [a ground squirrel of the marmot family]. Second, city farmers can walk their plots in minutes, rather than hours, addressing problems as they arise and harvesting produce at its peak. They can also plant more densely because they hand cultivate, nourish their soil more frequently and micromanage applications of water and fertilizer.”

I can tick most of those boxes including our local equivalent of groundhogs, the Cape mole, which takes a share of the sweet potatoes. All of which tells us that small farming, urban or rural, has its own challenges, especially water.

We are lucky enough to have a summer water supply in the shape of two well-points. Marginal profits are another challenge.

Many small farmers find they need another job to make ends meet, which is why we pray for them to be properly rewarded. I too have another job—teaching. So do pray for us small farmers!

Africa’s Samaritans

Missionary Intention: That Christians in Africa may give witness to love and faith in Jesus Christ amid political-religious conflicts.

In the midst of political and religious conflicts we hope that Christian believers will stand out by a living proclamation of the love of Christ based on a lively faith.

Accra, Ghana. (CNS photo/Gabriela Barnuevo, EPA)

However, we are realistic enough to know that not everyone will be able to rise to this. Sometimes we may be sorely disappointed, as for example in the cases of those Christians who have participated in terrible things such as genocide.

We are, of course, a Church of sinners and Jesus called and continues to call sinners. Indeed he proclaimed that his mission was not to the (morally) healthy but the sick. So we should expect to meet sinners in the Church and we should be comfortable acknowledging that we are among their number.

However, the sick go to the doctor to be healed, and hence if that healing has not taken place this raises important questions. If we have not changed, or been converted, then might we not be risking claiming membership of the Body of Christ under false pretences?

Last year in Kenya a bus was stopped by members of an Islamist terrorist group. The gunmen wanted to separate the Christians from the Muslims, intending to murder the Christians. The Muslims refused to be separated from their Christian fellow passengers and some offered them items of Muslim dress to confuse the terrorists.

Those Muslims bring to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan. Indeed they showed us Christians how to live out the parable.

The final injunction was: ‘Go and do likewise’. If we could do as these good and courageous Muslims did, we would give a powerful witness in those places in the world where political and religious conflicts rage.