Letter to the Editor from Dunwoody

Published: August 18, 2005

To the Editor:

Father John Kieran’s clever play on the word “chicken” in his story of the “Chicken Offertory” (The Georgia Bulletin, “‘Chicken Offertory’ Deepens Meaning Of Giving,” July 7) is quite amusing. In case you missed it, he told of concelebrating a Mass in Haiti in which the gift bearers processed down the aisle with their only treasures—live chickens! The astonishment on his face as a five-pound bird was thrust toward him must have been a hilarious sight to see! But the lesson in his story hit close to home for this North American suburbanite. Are we being “chicken” when we drop a $5 or $10 offering in the Sunday collection and feel good about it because we are sacrificing our Starbucks coffee or some other thing we can actually survive without? Those Haitians gave from their want—we often give from our surplus. Which is the greater gift?

Jean Farrell, Dunwoody