If we only serve people’s temporal needs, we miss the most important part of every personFor more information, contact Chris Ice, Chief Executive Officer
People hunger for much more than their earthly needs
At Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph, our tagline is “To Serve & To Lift.”
Our goal for every person walking through our doors is to serve their immediate needs, relieve their anxieties and remove their burdens. At the same time, we want to lift them to the dignity of self-reliance.
Those who come to us are heavily burdened, their burdens often spurred by earthly needs. We are just one of many organizations throughout the city devoted to meeting these earthly needs. But, way too often, those other organizations neglect the most important need – spiritual.
Each person has an earthly body (temporal) and a soul (spiritual). When we look at our Christian faith, we know that our body will eventually die, but we believe our soul will live forever.
If we only serve the temporal needs and forget the spiritual needs, we miss the most important part of every person we serve, the soul. This is why we have the Our Lady Undoer of Knots Chapel in our office, to provide the opportunity for each person to experience the God who created them in a unique and unrepeatable way. We will never turn anyone away no matter their circumstances or faith background. But, we also know many people are searching for more, even if they’re not exactly sure what the “more” is. They come to Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph because they trust us and desire that something more. Many ask us to pray with and for them, and if they don’t, we initiate the prayer. Few decline. The hunger inside each person is beyond the temporal needs of food, rent and utilities. It’s a hunger that can only be filled with God. We can’t measure this statistically or share it in a chart, but I can definitively state we are transforming lives through serving and lifting people spiritually.
On Nov. 1 and 2, we celebrate All Saints and All Souls Day. We celebrate because we know each person has a soul, and, after a person dies, the soul lives forever. We have great saints who have gone before us, who have lived exemplary lives while on earth, and we honor them on All Saints Day. On the following day, All Souls Day, we commemorate all the faithfully departed and hold them up in prayer.
Throughout this e-newsletter you’ll read of the immense impact we are having. But know this: The spiritual aspect is incorporated into everything we do and shared with you in the simple language of To Serve & To Lift.
