Be My Disciples: Canadian Connection 2014 CANADIAN

Canadian Thanksgiving is more connected to advocate for the poor. We need to traditions of Europe where celebrations of educate ourselves about food and harvest or thanks usually took place in October. hunger issues. Eat local or fair trade The explorer landed in foods. Find out if there is an Newfoundland in 1578 and wanted to give organization in your city or your church thanks for his safe arrival to the New World. That that you can help. Use the power of means the first Thanksgiving in your pen to encourage our legislators was celebrated in Canada 43 years before the to make changes. pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. This Thanksgiving don’t just give For a few hundred years, Thanksgiving was thanks for your food, but also for those celebrated in late October or early November. On who work so others may have food. January 31, 1957, Canadian Parliament announced that on the second Monday in October, Thanksgiving would be “a day of IDEAS FOR YOUR general thanksgiving to almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been FAMILY TIME blessed.” Thanksgiving is a time when many Other than the date our Thanksgiving is churches collect food for local food similar to the USA Thanksgiving. We love to get banks.Help your children find out together with family, eat too much food and about their local food bank and what watch football or get outdoors for the last of the they can do to help. Sadly, nearly nice weather! every community has one or needs one. If your community doesn’t have Isn’t it ironic that at about the same time we are a food bank, check with the local celebrating our boutiful harvest and eating huge schools to see if they know of any meals that we celebrate World Food Day needy families. Another good place to (October 16)! This is part of a global movement give is local Universities - they are to end huger around the world. often full of students that don’t have much money and so eating becomes How can we, as members of the Catholic secondary. Church, end hunger? As disciples of Jesus we are called to minister to the poor both by means Your family could promote healthy of Charity and Social Justice. habits by setting aside at least the first night of every week to have a Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that “justice is healthy dinner. Find tips and recipes inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it” at Kids Cook Monday! (thekidscook- (Caritas in Veritate, no. 6). monday.org). You might even have So, yes, we need to help feed those who are your kids help prepare the meal! hungry but it doesn’t end there. We also need to