Their staff is educated in human services, social work, and advocacy. They possess complex training, resources, and know how to best assist the needs of those who are at risk for homelessness, loss of basic needs, and hunger. Good Shepherd Coalition operates solely on donations and helps each client on an individual basis without bias or discrimination, with equal effort, compassion, and empathy. All of this work is completed by a staff of two.

That's right, just two dedicated women run this organization that has assisted just over 3,500 families with coordinated funding of over $3 million dollars. They also provide holiday assistance to over 250 families. This assistance spans Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Their members provide meals along with gifts and baskets for children.

The evening was fun for several reasons including the fact that I sat at a table of ten St. Lawrence members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. It is easy to have fun when you are with friends. At each seating, there was a small image of a raven attached to a piece of paper with a note. The note referred you to the Book of Job, specifically Chapter 38, Verse 41. Then the head of Good Shepherd Coalition gave a talk after dinner. She referred to the raven and why it was important.

Job's Test

Before I get to that, a little something about the Book of Job. God and Satan make a bet, kind of like DraftKings today. Satan claims Job is only faithful because God blesses him with wealth. God allows Satan to test Job. Job loses his cattle, his servants, and all ten of his children in one day. He still does not curse God. Satan then hits Job with painful sores all over his body. Still, Job does not question God.

There is a joke about the Book of Job that has Job ask God why all these miserable things are happening to him. God's answer is "Some people just tick me off!" and of course, that is not the real reason. Get back to the bet between God and Satan.

The Book of Job explores why innocent people suffer and how God runs the world. The Book of Job is hard to understand because it uses dense ancient poetry as its form of communicating, deals with complex philosophical ideas about why we suffer, and hides the opening "behind-the-scenes" heavenly setup from the characters in the story. Most of the book is written in poetic verse rather than plain prose, filled with old metaphors, vivid imagery, and parallel phrases that are hard to translate and follow today. It reads like an ancient philosophical debate or a staged oral argument where friends aggressively accuse Job of hidden sins.

Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, sit with Job. They argue at great length that Job must have sinned to deserve this pain. Job insists he is innocent. He questions God's justice and expresses deep despair. At last, God answers Job out of a violent windstorm. God shows Job the vast and complex design of the universe. He highlights the difference between God's infinite wisdom and human limits. Job humbles himself and accepts his limited understanding. God tells the friends they spoke wrongly about Him but forgives them through Job's prayers.

What Is With the Raven?

We can understand this Cliff Notes message in this book of 42 chapters and over 12,000 words. But what is with the raven? In one of the lessons from God, God asks, in the dense Hebrew poetry that the Book of Job contains, "Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?"

God sustains even common, wild, and unclean birds that humans do not farm or feed.

The verse highlights that God sustains even common, wild, and unclean birds that humans do not farm or feed. The hungry calls of young ravens are poetically described as crying out to God, and God answers by providing even this scavenging and unclean bird what they need. Placed alongside descriptions of lions and wild goats, the raven emphasizes that God's care extends across the entire natural world, far beyond human control or understanding.

Each place setting at the dinner included a small raven. During her talk, the woman explained why they chose a raven as the item we should take home with us. The main point of the talk was that God did not come down from heaven and feed the raven, yet they were fed. Other times in the Bible, people are suddenly given food. Yet God does not come down from heaven and provide people with what they need. The people are fed by someone on earth listening to the cries for help by someone among us. Someone that knows someone that requires assistance and provides what is needed.

Faith Made Visible

In 1970, soon to be Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, a 4th degree Knight of Columbus, addressed the delegates at the 88th Supreme Convention in Houston, Texas with a challenge. The challenge, one that Fulton Sheen made a part of his lifelong ministry, was to engage the world through a faith made visible in action.

Fulton Sheen did not expect large scale and visible actions. He was asking for actions including feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless. Simple actions akin to feeding the ravens.

We already do those things as active Knights of Columbus. And please remember that when a group like Good Shepherd Coalition or St. Vincent de Paul Society asks for assistance to help them "feed the ravens", live your faith in action.