The words on the card were taken from a poem by the South American poet Pablo Neruda.

'Let us sit down soon to eat with those who have not eaten, with strawberries in the snow and a plate like the moon itself from which all can eat. For now I ask no more than the justice of eating.'

The other was from Action Aid and asked the receiver to stick five pence onto an enclosed card addressed to the Chief Executive of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy. The card read,' I am concerned that as food prices spiral globally, fruit pickers in your supply chain in South Africa barely earn enough to feed their families. If Tesco paid their workers just five pence more per kilo of Granny Smith apples, the workers could be paid a living age of just under £100 per month. We know that Tesco can afford it as despite these tough economic times, In September you announced records profits of £ 1.45 billion.'

I wonder how many of us this weekend as we struggle with over laden shopping trolleys, through the various supermarkets, will reflect on the justice of eating. The wages of the workers in South Africa are so low that at least 80% of their entire income is spent on food.

The situation in Zimbabwe is even starker. While people literally starve, the big supermarkets export whatever food is available to fill the shelves in this country and throughout the world. We are spoilt for choice.

The poor in the beautiful City of Baltimore don't have a choice. Viva House a place featured in the current documentary series,' The Wire,' is one of a number of Catholic Worker houses in the United States.

Catholic Worker houses began life during the credit crunch of the great depression of the hungry thirties. Dorothy Day a young journalist in New York encountered a starving pregnant woman and with the last few dollars she possessed rented a room to give the woman shelter. It was the beginning of a remarkable movement, based on the concept of applying revolutionary basic Christianity to social problems. Dorothy Day and those she inspired literally applied the corporal works of mercy, to the everyday situation of the homeless, the hungry and the hounded, the human beings that the most powerful and rich nation in the world, the United States, had turned its back on.

Viva House which is situated in the poorest neighbourhood of Baltimore, for the last forty years, in the words of its founders, 'broken bread with almost a million people. Imagine a small two terrace row house providing a daily meal, for those facing the harsh reality of life on the street. Some 40,000 people, mostly women and children have stayed at the house whose walls appear to expand when necessary, to meet the need.

With it veritable army of voluntary workers, some of whom came from Derry, they have distributed more than five hundred tons of food bags to families in the neighbourhood. As Brendan Walsh notes.'Enormous generosity has enabled us to be a vehicle for returning some of what has been stolen from the poor'.

It is a sobering thought during the season of giving and getting that we in the First world, even in a City like our own noted for its generosity and hospitality, and its houses of hospitality, are getting more than we are giving.

Few of us will experience the starvation facing people in Haiti, or Bangladesh or even in the United States. Spiralling cost of basic food such as rice which has doubled in price in the first months of the year has left people who already face daily hunger now facing starvation.

An excellent article in the July issue of New Internationalists, details how the big corporations are literally making a killing from what is claimed as world food crisis. The cost of wheat has increased by 130 per cent alone as well as the cost of cooking oil fruit and vegetables.

As we view our overstocked shelves in the supermarket we may say a silent prayer that such situations are not affecting our lives but can we assume that this will be the case next year or after. Some countries are closing their borders to protect their domestic markets and we have seen the food riots on television, of desperate people experiencing food shortages.

Governments claim that the world shortage of food is due to drought, or an increasing world population or the diversion of crops and land to other means of production. The reality is that there is enough food to feed everyone in the world but it isn't getting to all who need it.

The big corporations and investors in the grain markets are still making massive profits and the retail giants are hardly taking the strain. The UK, French and the United States giant supermarkets claim that food sales are the main sector sustaining their continuing profit increases.

There is no thought of the justice in eating among the worlds multi national corporations, who by and large have transformed food from a source of livelihood to a mere commodity to be gambled away for greed and profit, at the expense of hunger among the worlds poorest.

When I first met the workers in Viva House some twenty five years ago, I was amazed at the sense of celebration of life that existed among those queuing for their 'daily bread' and those in the kitchens preparing and serving it. The motto was 'when you are confronted by the despair and indignities poor people suffer, your house better be a place of joy and celebration and a school, for the poor teach us everything worth knowing.'

I spoke with an elderly man in the queue whose situation had been shaped by circumstances outside of his control. He had been a dock worker all his life for Baltimore was among the busiest seaports in the world. Baltimore was the seaport were many of the starving Irish arrived during the famine. During World war two, it was a busy naval port.

All that changed during the sixties when the port ceased to be a centre of trade and navel training. My friend lost his job and due to his age and perhaps because he was an African American, was unable to find another one.

He eventually lost his home as the docks area underwent a massive transformation to meet the needs of the new industry, tourism.
Today, the Baltimore docks area is now one of the biggest art noveaux and expensive eating areas in the US, catering for the millions of tourists who daily visit its restaurants and shops and refurbished battleships.

Across the newly built six lane highway, and out of sight of the tourists, is the poor neighbourhood with its burned out houses, its homeless and unemployed and its house of hospitality.

The Viva Houses of this world are the true spirit of Christmas. The justice of eating can never be taken for granted.