After scanning the new food pantry in a reconstructed former garage at St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Camp Springs, its large wooden shelves stacked high with packaged and canned food, Cardinal Wilton Gregory had a three word review: “This is wonderful!”
Accompanied by Ligia Rojas, a longtime parishioner and volunteer there who now runs the pantry, Washington’s archbishop on Jan. 22 had just been handed a pair of scissors and cut a small red ribbon in the doorway of the building not far from the Capital Beltway at 5301 Auth Road.
In his prayer of blessing, Cardinal Gregory noted that those who come to that Maryland food pantry for help “are a special reflection of Christ himself who said whatsoever we do to one of them, we do to him.”
In the prayer, the cardinal asked God to bless the food pantry’s guests, its volunteers and its supporters.
“By the grace of your Holy Spirit, make this new food pantry a house of blessing and a center of love, where your flock is tended to and fed, and where the faithful come to care for Christ in the person of their brothers and sisters,” prayed the cardinal, before sprinkling holy water on the pantry.
After taking a quick tour of the pantry, including a back room that has a large refrigerator and freezer, the cardinal greeted parish families gathered there for the blessing. He also walked over to see a formerly run-down farmhouse next door owned by St. Philip the Apostle Parish that had also been reconstructed by friends of the parish and now serves as Good Shepherd House, where members of St. Teresa of Calcutta’s Missionaries of Charity teach Catechesis of the Good Shepherd religion classes to young children on Saturdays.
Before Cardinal Gregory arrived, Ligia Rojas in an interview explained the genesis of the parish food pantry. She said after the pandemic hit in 2020, Father Patrick Lewis, St. Philip’s pastor, decided the parish should so something for parishioners and people in the community who needed help. That May, they started providing food every two weeks to 17 families from the parish school and religious education program, and delivered food to some senior citizens who couldn’t get out, to make sure they were okay. Before the pantry opened its doors, the food outreach was done from St. Philip the Apostle School.
Now the parish provides food to about 70 families on a monthly basis, and the new pantry is open on Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. for people needing food assistance. In addition to canned and packaged food, St. Philip’s pantry distributes fresh produce, bread, eggs and meat.
Rojas immigrated to the United States from Costa Rica as a teen-ager and has been a member of St. Philip the Apostle Parish for nearly four decades. In addition to helping out at the parish school and in the church, she serves as the prefect of the Sodality there. She described seeing the happy faces of people who appreciate getting food for their households.
Her volunteer work in the parish, school and at the pantry is done out of her love for God and her desire to serve others, Rojas said.
“I feel really blessed to be able to do all that,” she said. “It’s many hours. I do it for the Lord. Everything I do is always for the Lord.”
While touring the Good Shepherd House next to the food pantry, the Missionaries of Charity showed Cardinal Gregory the classroom areas where they teach children ages 3-10, including a room where they had set up a replica of a small altar to teach young children about the Mass.
Later, Sister Georgine Ann, one of the Missionaries of Charity who teaches there, said, “The greatest blessing is the children fall in love with Jesus through the Eucharist, through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.” She noted that some of the children have inspired their parents to come back to church.
That morning, Cardinal Gregory celebrated Mass at St. Philip the Apostle Church. Father Lewis noted that day’s Gospel was about Jesus calling the Apostles, and St. Philip’s Parish was happy to welcome the cardinal there as a successor to the Apostles.
Cardinal Gregory, who had celebrated a Mass at that church in 2021 for the students, teachers and staff of St. Philip the Apostle School to mark its 60th anniversary, centered his homily on how the Apostles were fishermen called by Jesus to be fishers of men, and how today’s faithful are likewise called to bring Christ to others.
The cardinal noted that while the Apostles used nets as their tools of the trade when they were fishermen, the tools of the trade for Christ’s followers today are different.
“We are to be people of gentleness of heart, of fidelity to principles, of integrity of life, of generosity of spirit, to be persons of faith, hope and love,” he said.
The food pantry’s outreach can likewise draw people to Christ, the cardinal said.
Cardinal Gregory encouraged the members of St. Philip the Apostle to draw on other tools of the trade in sharing their faith, including “kindness, tenderness, welcome and compassion.”
“It is only through the grace of Christ that you will become an effective and successful parish community,” the cardinal said. “You already know many of the skills of being a generous and loving neighbor. The ‘tools of the trade’ for being a good community of faith are a loving heart, a dedicated heart and a faithful heart.”
The petitions at the Mass included a prayer for people in need in that community, that the parish’s food pantry will be a source of nutrition and comfort for them. Cardinal Gregory also offered a prayer for that weekend’s victims of a mass shooting in the Los Angeles area, where 10 people were killed and 10 others were injured at a Lunar New Year gathering. The cardinal prayed for the victims, for those who are grieving their loss, for the people who responded to help, and for peace in the nation.
In announcements at the end of Mass, Father Lewis said that in order to stock the new pantry, non-perishable food will be collected at the back of the church on the last weekend of each month. Before his final blessing, Cardinal Gregory encouraged parishioners to visit the food pantry, and he expressed gratitude for the friends of the parish who designed and reconstructed that space for its new use, and for the parishioners and members of the community who are stocking it with food.
As people lined up to greet the cardinal after Mass and then headed home, Deacon Darryl Kelley in an interview noted how the run-down garage and farmhouse on the parish property had been reconstructed to become a food pantry and a building for teaching the faith to young children.
“It’s like us. Sometimes we’re sinful and broken down, and God can transform us to be servants for other people,” said Deacon Kelley, who serves at St. Philip the Apostle Parish. He is a former Maryland state delegate who converted to the Catholic faith and felt called to be a deacon.
After the pandemic hit, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington launched a Community Food Security Program to support food pantries at local parishes. According to the archdiocese, nearly one-half of its parishes – 67 out of 139 parishes, including St. Philip the Apostle – operate food pantries, and during the early months of the pandemic, that outreach doubled to serving an estimated 15,000 people each week. The archdiocese’s Catholic Charities estimates that it served 2.9 million meals through its programs during this past year.
In an interview after the Mass at the Camp Springs parish, Cardinal Gregory said that people are accustomed to thinking that inner-city parishes need help for people in their communities, but during the pandemic, parishes in affluent and middle class neighborhoods “discovered that hunger has touched the lives of an awful lot of people that they probably never suspected.”
The cardinal praised how parishes responded with food help, sometimes like St. Philip’s starting new pantries, and did it as a work of faith, “because people cared about their hungry neighbors, especially the elderly or the disabled, those folks that don’t find it easy to get out.”
Earlier, Father Lewis reflected on how the parish’s food pantry came about.
“It’s been a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit, to see so many people working together for the love of those in need,” St. Philip’s pastor said. “We feel so blessed (that) we’re going to continue to help the less fortunate far into the future.”
