An emaciated child from the other side of the world stares through the camera lens, over the ocean, across the desert, and from the cardboard to my soul: half-naked, hand extended, hollowed eyes pleading for charity. I set the pamphlet down on my desk and sigh. A tinge of guilt causes my heart to flinch like a pinched nerve, the sheer volume of need expressed in the child’s gaze overwhelming as an avalanche cascading down a mountainside.
          I plump into my office chair and look up at the crucifix hanging on the wall. Lines from the Psalms that fell comfortably from my lips a few moments ago in the church now stab like a dart: I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
        What can I do? Though I can anonymously throw invisible money back across the ocean via the internet, it seems that it is not enough. Shouldn’t my own ears hear the buzz of the fly on his bare shoulders? Shouldn’t my feet trod in the dusty streets where he asks for bread? Shouldn’t my skin sweat in the same heat?
        My train of thought is broken by the voice of the secretary.               
        “Father, there is a call for you. Line one.”
        It is the nursing home from across town. For half of a year, I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to gain entry. Three days ago, on Sunday, I had decided to come in person and beg my way in, but was again denied. State rules are state rules, they said, no exceptions.
        “Hello?”
        “Good afternoon. I am the supervisor here at the home. I was told by the charge nurse that you had asked to come in the other day. The patient you asked about is very lonely. Here is the deal: as long as you make an appointment, you can come in after we do a thorough screening.”
        “I will be there tomorrow at 4 o’clock.”
        “I will be waiting for you. But you know someone else who will be even more anxious to see you.”
              Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. The glass doors slide open and I step into the lobby and turn to make my way down the hall. A soft alarm buzzes from a room on the other side of the building. A bead of sweat trickles down my back beneath the plastic gown that ruffles at each step.
            I swing the door open.
            Before me, an elderly child of mine, a woman of years, looks up from her wheelchair. I expect her to speak, to smile, to rejoice, but she says not a word. Her eyes are fixed on mine, staring across the space of a year without visitors, without affection, without the Eucharist. She is starving.
            I unfold a cloth next to the bedside table and pull out a small crucifix. My thumb scrapes across the corpus, hard as the nails that pierced His hands and feet, withered and broken. I open the gold pyx and hold the Host before His hungry one: He who has crossed oceans, deserts and the gap of infinity to present Himself to His trembling child.
            And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.