What can the compassion of 46 communities, 50,000 households, and you do when we all work together for the Common Good? As described on their website, ONE Wake is a nonpartisan, multiracial, multi-issue group of religious congregations, associations, and other nonprofits in Wake County. They have over 50,000 local households as members, and they “bring people together to identify shared concerns, build relationships, and take collective action to improve communities through systemic change,” as Nancy Dilger, a St. Francis parish liaison with ONE Wake, said.
She adds, “ONE Wake is a great advocacy opportunity to complement the many works of charity our community supports. ONE Wake believes that ordinary people, when organized, have power. The power to make meaningful changes to create a world grounded in love, when they work together across lines of race, class, faith, and neighborhoods.”
Nancy emphasizes, “ONE Wake aligns with our Catholic Social Teaching’s emphasis on human dignity and the common good, and is organized around the seven key Catholic Social Teaching principles: the dignity of the human person, the call to family, community, and participation, rights and responsibilities, the option for the poor and vulnerable, the dignity of work and the rights of workers, solidarity, and care of God’s creation.” “These principles guide building a just and peaceful society and living out one’s faith in the world,” adds Nancy.
She notes that, “When Pope Francis met with an Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) Interfaith delegation (sister organization of ONE Wake) at the Vatican in 2022, he stressed the importance of being with people and paying attention to their reality, emphasizing ‘Amor Concreto’ or ‘love concretely in action.’ Pope Francis said that he understood our work as seeing and hearing injustice in the real lives of our people and acting to change their situation.” The St Francis of Assisi parishioners have always been known, from the very beginning of the parish, for truly living the Gospel daily.
Since 1982, The Catholic Community of St Francis of Assisi (SFA) has engaged as a faith community to encounter the God who loves all and to serve and transform the world as it should be, as our mission statement professes, with many answering the challenge that Fr David McBriar, OFM, ended homilies with: “What for me? What for you? What for our city?” When local faith-based leaders were invited to work together for the common good of all in Wake County, the Catholic Community of St Francis of Assisi boldly led by becoming a founding member of ONE Wake.
Come to the next ONE Wake event to do God’s Work! Advocacy work starts with building relationships, so sign up for the ONE Wake Newsletter to put your Love in Action, look on the ministry’s REALM link, and/or please contact any of the following ONE Wake Leaders to meet one-on-one to discuss ONE Wake and your personal interests in God’s advocacy work:
Nancy Dilger, Becky Cawley, Rick Pappas, Paul Williams, Mary Ellen McGuire,