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Jean-Paul and Gerrie Musicco have been named Chair Couple of the 2010 "Living Our Faith" Annual Bishop’s Appeal.
The New Canaan couple, members of St. Aloysius Parish, bring a deep and renewed faith along with their commitment to building a more compassionate community.
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The Diocese of Bridgeport has an email newsletter, Living Our Faith, in addition to our periodic e-mail updates on the Appeal and other areas. Sign up for our e-newsletter today!
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<< Back to Article Index
Giving to the Appeal:
You Need to Help
“GIVING FROM OUR SUBSTANCE is never easy, but that’s what Christ expected us to do.” (PHOTO BY JOHN GLOVER)
Article Appears in the April 4, 2009 Edition of the Fairfield County Catholic
BY JAN & BOB DILENSCHNEIDER
(Editor’s note: Jan and Bob Dilcenschneider, members of Saint John Parish in Darien, are serving as chair-couple of the 2009 Living Our Faith Annual Bishop’s Appeal)
A few Fridays ago, a young woman came to talk to us at our home, but she didn’t want her parents to know.
Why? Because she was coming to ask for help, and that’s a hard thing for all of us to do.
Her mother and father had become nameless statistics in the government’s monthly unemployment report as America approaches record joblessness, and millions of people are left without a regular income to support their families, pay their
mortgages, buy groceries, and make car payments.
Daily Headlines
You see more headlines every day about how bad things have become – even in what we once thought was the promised land of opportunity, Fairfield County.
This 24-year-old woman, motivated by love and anxiety, said her family could no longer make the mortgage payment and that they might have to take her brother out of private school. She wanted a job to help them weather what could be a very long and enervating crisis.
Bob was able to get her some part-time work, but that’s only a very small step toward alleviating their plight, a plight that is shared by more and more people every day. People you and we both know.
Last Sunday, we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Westport and made a
startling discovery: There used to be six servers, and now the staff is down to two.
Four of them were fired, and when we asked the manager about the staff cuts, he acknowledged there was nothing he could do. Even though they were dedicated employees and he valued their commitment, the margins had slipped more than 60 percent.
Everywhere you look, things are spiraling out of control.
That same day, we were talking to a fellow who lost his job and can’t pay the mortgage. He hasn’t told his wife yet and, every morning, he keeps up the charade of pretending to leave for the office. He wanted to know how to break the news to her and asked Bob to go with him.
Another fellow we know, who’s 90, sold his house, moved into an apartment, and took a job to help his children, who are unemployed, pay their bills.
So what does all this mean to you? Many of you who get this newspaper are probably out of work. Others are suffering chronic anxiety waiting for the inevitable announcement that the company is laying off employees. Still others are seniors on fixed incomes, facing the prospect of the standard of living falling from 25 to 30 percent.
Demands on Us
These are hard times for all of us, and yet they are times that make the greatest demands on us to do good and help others. There are 410,000 Catholics in Fairfield County, and we can do a lot of good. The Annual Bishop’s Appeal helps schools, Catholic Charities, soup kitchens, food pantries, religious education programs, and much more.
Last year, Catholic Charities served 875,000 meals and provided 45,000 counseling sessions for families. This year, the need is immeasurably greater. The number of unemployed, poor, and homeless has increased, and families confronting the loss of a job and the loss of their homes are under greater stress than ever before.
Think about these numbers for a moment. This year, throughout our diocese more than 1.1 million meals will be served through soup kitchens, food pantries, and senior nutrition programs.
That should tell you a lot about what’s happening in our land of opportunity. It should tell you even more about what we have to do to help our neighbor as the crisis worsens.
Giving from our excess has always been easy. Giving from our substance is never easy, but make no mistake about it: That’s what Christ said He expected us to do.
(To learn more about the 2009 Annual Bishop’s Appeal and to make a secure online donation, visit www.bridgeportdiocese.com)
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