January 28.   One project that the parish pastoral team was considering was to invite families to have, at least, a small vegetable garden or some fruit trees, even in an urban area.   Farming has been an important way of life for thousands of years. Large commercial farms have taken over most of the food production of the world but many small-scale farmers still live and work on their own land and produce for their own needs with some extra to sell or even to share with those in need.  Growing our own vegetables, fruit and herbs are excellent ways to boost our health and experience the joy of nature while keeping in touch with the earth. Becoming an eco-friendly family:    “GROWING GREEN” could be our family slogan!

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how.  The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.   When the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come.  Mark 4: 26-34.   Pope Francis. Those who tilled and kept the land were obliged to share its fruits, especially with the poor, with widows, orphans and foreigners in their midst.  “When you reap the harvest you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after the harvest.   You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner/migrant.”  LS71