Holy Water for Haiti

The cruel irony of a hurricane is this: after all that rain, after the flood and the mud, there's no clean water to drink. So on Sunday, October 10, the members of Sweet Holy Spirit Full Gospel Baptist Church at 8621 S. South Chicago Ave. collected bottled drinking water for the people of Haiti--hard hit by the recent Hurricane Jeanne--and prayed over it.

According to the October 11 edition of the Chicago daily tabloid Redeye, Bishop Larry Trotter prayed over a stack of bottled water that was five cases high and eight cases wide. "We pray that this water will save a life," he said. Redeye reported that Chicago churches have thus far donated more than 200 cases of drinking water to relief efforts in Haiti.

But providing clean drinking water is not only an emergency need. Far too many people from Africa to South America go without this basic life necessity. The scarcity of water often leads literally to war.

Catholic Relief Services is in the second of a three-year project to bring clean drinking water to the 36,000 people of the Nguludi community in Malawi, Africa ( More about Catholic Relief Services work in Malawi ). Infants, children and pregnant women literally die from the lack of clean water.

Working with the diocese of Caruaru, Brazil, CRS is helping small villages of people dig cisterns and create other water-collecting and purifying systems ( More about Catholic Relief Services work in Brazil ).

In the Catholic liturgical tradition, water is blessed and used in the sacrament of baptism and even at Mass as a reminder of baptism. The symbolism is obvious: Without water, people die. With water, people live and thrive. Holy water--for real!

Catholic Connections

Moreover, people are beginning to grasp a new and more radical dimension of unity; for they perceive that their resources, as well as the precious treasures of air and water--without which there cannot be life-- and the small delicate biosphere of the whole complex of all life on earth, are not infinite, but on the contrary must be saved and preserved as a unique patrimony belonging to all human beings.
Justice in the World, World Synod of Catholic Bishops, 1971

Reflection Questions

In Matthew 25, when Jesus says, "I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink," was he referring only to one-on-one acts of kindness, or perhaps also something bigger?

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