Wonderful words of wisdom

Sr Christian Molidor works for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) and sent me this lovely sharing:

CNEWA recently sent an appeal which stated that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees....“Exiled to Egypt, penniless and alone, they depended on the charity of compassionate people.” I never thought of that. Later, I read a report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees announcing that more than 4 million Iraqis have left their homes: 2.2 million have fled to neighboring countries, with the largest numbers in Syria (1.5 million people), Jordan (700,000 people), and Lebanon (50,000 people).

Those are just Iraqi refugees. Count the Holy Family (Well, they were already told there was no room at the inn…) among all the other refugees
and then….what happens? For me, the statistics blur into incomprehensible numbers, not touching me because I can’t understand the magnitude of this inhumanity. But I often try to reduce those numbing numbers into a voice I recall from a widow in a Jordanian refugee camp. She had nothing in her hut, but – obviously – an abundance in her heart.

I stupidly asked, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had all the money of a (named) famous rock star?” She calmly replied, “I have life. I have what I need. He hasn’t.”

So much for statistics!