For the 2026 Family Year Planner and an overview go to 2026 FAMILY YEAR PLANNER

5 January.  Generosity. SEE:  After they had discussed the matter and shared their thoughts and feelings the Petersons had decided instead of their usual long holiday they would cut the time short and offer the money they had saved to pay for the school fees for his brother’s children. They concluded, “We can’t give him a job, but we can help him and his family in that way.”

JUDGE, reflect and share:  Scripture:This is the message which you have heard from the beginning.  That we should love one another.  By this we know love, if one of you has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” Let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:11-21.  Pope Francis: All of us, however, need to recover the joy of living, since men and women, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26), cannot rest content with getting along one day at a time, settling for the here and now and seeking fulfilment in material realities alone. SNC9. Pope Leo: We should perhaps speak more correctly of the many faces of the poor and of poverty, since it is a multifaceted phenomenon. There are many forms of poverty: the poverty of those who lack material means of subsistence, of those who are socially marginalized and lack the means to give voice to their dignity and abilities, moral and spiritual poverty, cultural poverty, the poverty of those who find themselves in a condition of personal or social weakness or fragility, of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom.  DT9

ACT: Decide on possible appropriate action towards love and care for the poor. Conclude with prayer of gratitutde for your gifts and compassion for the needy.