By Laura Loker.
The Pillar.
America is facing a crisis of loneliness. With nationwide declines in social connectivity, even the U.S. surgeon general is concerned about the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” facing Americans. And Catholics are not exempt from the crisis.
But parishioners at St. Thérèse Little Flower in South Bend, Indiana, might just have a parish-based approach to address the epidemic of loneliness.
The parish has launched a program of “households” – intentional communities of a few dozen people who gather one evening a month for food, fellowship and prayer.
Be loved, be fed’
“I was like, ‘We’re gonna go to so-and-so’s house and it’s going to be a bunch of people from church … and we’re gonna just have food together and talk and pray a little bit,’” she recalled.
And he goes, ‘Oh, okay, so like Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper.’”
Her son’s observation cut through the stress of getting everyone out the door.
“That’s the goal,” Gettinger said. “That’s the purpose: to create that kind of fellowship, that kind of community that Jesus created with his disciples.”
… Jesus says, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you” (Luke 14:12-14).
— Dr. Ralph Martin in Australia. Living as Catholics in Challenging Times
Catholic Critique 