Deus Caritas Est

I read the Pope's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, last week and I liked it very much. The first part was a good explanation on Christian Love and how it ties together with romantic love and brotherly love. This may be something that we all should read every once in a while so we can remind ourselves that the Gospel message is basically Love, God is Love and he wants us to Love him and Love our neighbors (or we should just say love everyone as everyone is our neighbor). I liked the second part myself because Pope Benedict reminds us that we all need to do our part and be charitable to all - we can not put all charity onto the government and he is even stating that we shouldn't put all charity onto government because then this charity will lose its Christian dimension. I have always felt that it is sad that the Church has given so much of its responsibility to help those in the Church to the government. It would be great if the deacons of the Church went back to helping those in need and having the congregation helping. My Parish just recently had a call out to help someone in need with clothing and blankets and my wife sent out an email and got around 7 responses from people willing to help. Let us all pray that we can be more charitable this year to those in need especially in our own neighborhoods and in the Church.