Dear Fellow Parishioner:

This month is our annual offering of letters as a part of our active membership with our Global Solidarity Partner, Bread for the World.  Our letters are addressed to our members of Congress:  Senator Casey, Senator Fetterman, and Rep. Summer Lee or Rep. Chris Deluzio.  All letters concern the upcoming reauthorization of the Farm Bill (critical to our domestic and international food-securing programs like SNAP, government commodities for food banks (for low-income families and seniors), and the International Food for Peace Program.

Below are three letters.  Two of them are addressed to our two U.S. Senators.  The third one is to your Representative, but since we do not know who your Representative is we ask you to fill in the name and on the third letter.  You can find out who your representative is by going to:
  https://www.house.gov/representatives

Please read and consider adding your own comments if you choose at the beginning and/or conclusion of the letter (space has been allotted).  Then sign the letters and return them to Mass next weekend to be placed in a basket at the host and wine table, and brought up as a part of our offertory processions.  If you can’t come to Mass next weekend you can bring them to the rectory during the week or bring them the following weekend and place them in the basket in the back of church.

All of our letters will be hand-delivered with letters from other churches in Pennsylvania directly to the offices of all of our members of Congress to which our letters are addressed. You can also send the letters on your own.

Thanks so much for being a part of this year’s St. Mary Magdalene Parish’s offering of letters.  “When I was hungry, you gave me to eat.”  Matthew 25

Senator Rober Casey's Letter  Senator John Fetterman's Letter

Representatives: Chris Deluzio or Summer Lee (can also be used for another representative)

Please consider signing a petition or sending a letter to Pope Francis in support of the canonization of six African Americans on the path to sainthood asking him to name Pierre Toussaint, Mother Mary Lange, Henriette DeLille, Augustus Tolton, Julie Greeley, and Sr. Thea Bowman as Catholic saints.
Petition  Letter to Pope Francis

Their Stories Video

Venerable Pierre Toussaint  (1776-1853) was born a slave in Haiti. Philanthropist & Founder of many Catholic charitable works.

Mother Mary Lange, 1784-1882) was the foundress and first Superior General of the Oblate Sisters of Providence (1829-1832), the first congregation of African American women religious in the history of the Catholic Church.

Venerable Henriette Delille (1813-1862) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, where she lived all of her life. She was determined to help those in need for the love of Jesus and for the sake of the Gospel.

Fr. Augustus Tolton(1854-1897) was the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black when he was ordained in 1886.

Julia Greeley (1833&1848-1918) was born into slavery, at Hannibal, Missouri. Freed by Missouri's Emancipation Act in 1865, Julia subsequently earned her keep by serving white families in Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico—though mostly in the Denver area

Sr. Thea Bowman, FSPA (1937-1990) was a self-proclaimed, “old folks’ child”.  She is acclaimed a “holy woman” in the hearts of those who knew and loved her and continue to seek her intercession for guidance and healing.