Feeding children and the 'miracle' of Mary's Meals during the Covid-19 pandemic

In the story of Mary’s Meals, prayer came first. Our daily work might be very simple and practical – the provision of daily school meals for the world’s hungriest children – but prayer has always played a key role. And that role has only become more prominent and fundamental to our efforts during this strange season of Covid-19.

While Mary’s Meals presents a universal invitation and appeal, drawing in people from all sorts of faith and non-faith backgrounds, it is also named after Mary the Mother of Jesus, is often described as a “fruit of Medjugorje”, and our values are shaped by Catholic social teaching.

The suffering, uncertainty and fear caused by Covid-19 around the world seems to have helped many of us understand more deeply the need for God and created a new heartfelt desire for us to speak with Him on a regular basis. And we have seen this manifest itself in many powerful ways within this diverse and global Mary’s Meals family recently.

Over the years, prayer, in the context of Mary’s Meals, has taken lots of different forms. Many of our supporters say daily the little “Mary’s Meals Prayer” which has been translated into many different languages. On many occasions various priests have offered Holy Mass for Mary’s Meals. Others fast and pray for our work on a regular basis. Several religious communities make Mary’s Meals a special intention as part of their daily prayer. But this new crisis and the challenges posed by Covid-19 have prompted a plethora of new and wonderful prayer initiatives.

We had tried and failed on a number of previous occasions to set up a regular international Mary’s Meals prayer group for our staff. Different time zones and hectic schedules always seemed to thwart the best intentions. But at the beginning of this crisis one staff member was moved to invite others on a call to pray together at lunchtime. A few of us joined and then the next day a few more – and so it has gone every day since. Colleagues from Africa, North America and Europe – and from various denominations – joining together in spontaneous heartfelt prayer for our own personal needs and also for the needs of the Mary’s Meals family.

Patricia Friel, from Mary’s Meals in Ireland, describes it like this: “Taking a few minutes out of my day to connect with Jesus and my workmates in prayer is the highlight of my day! No matter what’s going on I am filled with joy coming up to 1pm, as I know I am going to feel the love of the Lord that comes from this prayer group.”

Various prayer requests are sent in from many parts of the world and time is also taken to share scripture quotes, favourite prayers and the way God might be speaking to us. It is a very beautiful few minutes at the heart of each working day that is giving us all new strength and joy. It is also helping us feel closer and more united than we did when we could actually meet each other in our offices.

And then beyond that, in the broader family of Mary’s Meals, other initiatives have begun. Various priests, deacons and religious orders who support us have been leading Holy Hours to pray for our work – many of them live-streamed.

Father Frankie Mulgrew, of the Diocese of Salford, says: “To follow Mary’s example is to pray, because her life was one of prayer. To pray like her is to hope against hope, to see the glimmer of light amidst the darkness, and to trust with joy even when the road ahead isn't clear.

“Some parishioners are feeling helpless in these times because they want to do more to help. As people of faith, they know their prayers can make a difference. So we are delighted to pray for the work of Mary's Meals in these days as the charity continues to serve, bless and change young lives in the way that Mother Mary's prayers do, whenever we turn to her.”

It is true that we are, at times, feeling helpless these days, but we certainly do believe our prayers are making a difference – we can see the evidence all around us.

At the start of the lockdown, schools in all the countries where we provide for hungry children began to close, making it seem impossible to fulfil our promise of a daily meal to those little ones. And at that same moment, enormous uncertainty and fear began to develop about whether we could continue to fund the feeding of more than 1.6 million children every school day when so many of our supporters were facing new hardships of their own, and so many fundraising activities were just no longer impossible. These enormous – apparently insurmountable – challenges were the things we began presenting to Our Lord in our little Mary’s Meals prayer group and in those Holy Hours – fervently asking God to open doors and to show us ways to keep going.

The fact that three months later, despite a myriad of huge logistical challenges, we are serving food at home to nearly all of those children who normally receive Mary’s Meals, feels like a miracle. The fact that so far our supporters have continued to bless us with their gifts, is another enormous sign of God’s love and the incredible faithful love of our family – people who, even when times get hard, are willing to share some of what they have so that children might eat. Both of these wonderful things I believe are answers to prayer.

I am sure we are all learning a lot these days. We in Mary’s Meals most certainly are. And the biggest lesson for us – and one we want to make sure we do not forget when this season passes – is that it begins with prayer. Always.

Mary’s Meals Prayer

Our Father

Give us this day our Daily Bread

And forgive us for the times when we take more than our share

of bread that belongs to all.

Let us help you with good things

not with scraps from our table.

Teach us how to share what is not ours to keep.

Clothe us with Your love

that we might complete each good work You created us to do.

Place in our hearts Your compassion for each starving child

and use our little acts of love so that they starve no more.

Amen

About Mary’s Meals

• Mary’s Meals provides one daily meal in a place of learning in order to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
• Mary’s Meals feeds children every school day in 19 countries: Malawi, Liberia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Kenya, India, South Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Benin, Lebanon, Syria, Myanmar, Thailand, Ecuador, Madagascar, Romania, and Niger.
• The average global cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is just £15.90.
• Independently verified research from Malawi, Liberia and Zambia shows that in schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, hunger is reduced, enrolment increases, attendance improves, drop-out rates fall, absences dwindle, concentration in lessons is heightened, attainment levels increase, parents are less anxious, and children are happier.
• Mary’s Meals is committed to spending at least 93% of donations directly on its charitable activities. This is only possible because much of the charity’s work is done by an army of dedicated volunteers – including more than 80,000 in Malawi alone.
• The Mary’s Meals campaign was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during a famine and met a mother dying from AIDS. When Magnus asked her eldest son, Edward, what his dreams were in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow is founder of Mary’s Meals.