August Food for Thought

Hello By My Side friends,

Welcome to my August 2025 monthly post. I hope all of you are having a blessed summer and are enjoying this sunshine. I do think, though, we all need to say a few prayers for some rain, especially in all regions where the wildfires are destroying the lands, homes, and communities.

This post today brings me to our new Pope Leo XIV and makes me think about all those who are experiencing loss—through these wildfires or loss in other ways, perhaps through job loss, health issues or injury, or the loss of a loved one through death, etc.

I came across this amazing quote from Pope Leo XIV that I would like to share with you all in today’s post. He says this:

“Brothers, sisters…

I speak to you, especially to those who no longer believe, no longer hope, no longer pray, because they think God has left.

To those who are fed up with scandals, with misused power, with the silence of a Church that sometimes seems more like a palace than a home.

I, too, was angry with God. I, too, saw good people die, children suffer, grandparents cry without medicine. And yes… there were days when I prayed and only felt an echo.

But then I discovered something: God doesn’t shout. God whispers. And sometimes He whispers from the mud, from pain, from a grandmother who feeds you without having anything.

I don’t come to offer you perfect faith. I come to tell you that faith is a walk with stones, puddles, and unexpected hugs.

I’m not asking you to believe in everything. I’m asking you not to close the door. Give a chance to a God who waits for you without judgment.

I’m just a priest who saw God in the smile of a woman who lost her son… and yet she cooked for others.

That changed me.

So if you are broken, if you don’t believe, if you are tired of the lies… come anyway. With your anger, your doubt, your dirty backpack. No one here will ask you for a VIP card.

Because the Church, as long as I breathe, will be a home for the homeless and a rest for the weary.

God doesn’t need soldiers. He needs brothers. And you—yes, you—are one of them.”