August 18, is the Memorial of St Alberto Hurtado SJ (1901-1952)
St Hurtado was a Chilean Jesuit who served the poor. He founded the Trade Unions in Chile and Hogar de Cristo, an organisation for poor and abandoned young people. He wrote: “Christ roams through our streets in the person of so many of the suffering poor and dispossessed and people thrown out of their miserable slums. Christ huddled under bridges, (He) is in the person of so many children who lack someone to call father, who have been deprived ….of a mother’s kiss on their foreheads….Christ is without a home!” Shouldn’t we want to give Him one, those of us who have the joy of a comfortable home, plenty of good food, the means to educate and assure the future of our children? “What you do to the least of me, you do to me,” Jesus said.” Whom can you serve today in your circle of family, friends, colleagues and that poor man huddled in the doorway, that child begging at the traffic lights?