_{The motto of the 2024 Misereor Lenten Campaign: What do I care about a bean?}

Fasting means asking ‘What makes my life worth living? What are we advocating for? What can we share?’ During the Lenten Campaign we try to find answers to these questions. We stand together against global injustice and the destruction of creation. We get involved with campaigns, donations and our political voice.

Rooted in the Christian belief, the Lenten Campaign mobilises people to align their actions with the guiding principle of socio-ecological change. We support this with our materials, educational offers and other activities. Get involved and support our Lenten Campaign, so that we all strive for a just world together and initiate socio-ecological change.

Every year during Lent, the season between Ash Wednesday and Easter, which culminates on the 5th Sunday of Lent, the most important campaign of Misereor – the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Cooperation – takes place. The Opening Mass of the Lenten Campaign 2024 will be celebrated in Ludwigshafen on 18 February. It will be livestreamed via the German public service broadcaster ARD. On 17 March, the 5th Sunday of Lent, all Catholic parishes in Germany will collect donations for Misereor’s work.

Each year, the Lenten Campaign has a different theme linked to a country of the Global South and selected Misereor project partners. In 2024, it will be Colombia. Guided by the motto “What do I care about a bean?” we will focus on sustainable agriculture and a healthy diet. 

The motto: What do I care about a bean?

The motto of the 2024 Misereor Lenten Campaign: What do I care about a bean?
The motto can be a question we ask ourselves: Do I care about a bean?
It can be a statement: I care about a bean!
Beans are important. However small and easy to overlook they are. Because beans mean food. They mean growth. They mean future.

Beans are known to be one of the most important foodstuffs in Colombia. The first part of the motto “What do I care” seems to suggest that a single bean is irrelevant. It takes many beans to make a meal after all. However, we at Misereor care about each single bean, about each single person. Each story is worth telling.
And each story is worth hearing. Together with our project partners, we want to empower Colombia’s local population and enable food sovereignty. The goal of the rural pastoral care in the Diocese of Pasto is to improve the living conditions of small farmer families by strengthening communities and alternative cultivation methods.

We need diversity from the field to the plate and a fair distribution to ensure a healthy nutrition for everyone. That’s why with our Lenten Campaign, we want to raise awareness for the worth of agriculturally produced foodstuffs and a healthy diet. This also includes questioning agricultural production and our consumption in Germany.
Our vision is to make the world a liveable place for all.

Fasting

As the topic of this year’s Lenten Campaign is “nutrition”, we also want to take a closer look at fasting in itself. Why do we fast? Where does the tradition come from? And why is it still practised today?

Today’s hectic lifestyle leads us to rediscover old traditions like fasting.
When we fast, we create room for something new. John Chrysostom, Christian preacher and Archbishop of Constantinople in the 5th century, said: ‘Fasting is the food of the soul. In the same way as material food nourishes the body, fasting strengthens the soul and makes its wings lighter, lifts it above this world and helps it communicate with the heavenly.’ When we fast, we open up to thoughts and feelings that would otherwise escape us.

Let us share the coming Lenten Season: each occasion, each personal decision to go without something deserves our respect.
That’s why we are interested in your story. Do you fast? What motivates you to go without something? 

Share your fasting story with us (anonymously)

Let us take a look at the Misereor Lenten Veil created by Emeka Udemba: ‚What is sacred to us?‘. A world torn into pieces: This scenario is reflected in the current Misereor Lenten Veil, a collage of many pieces of torn newspaper. News, information, facts and fakes – layer by layer the artist tears the newspapers into small pieces, glues them together and makes them into something new. From afar, the earth on the Lenten Veil sparkles like a jewel in turquoise green and blue. Four arms reach into the warm, red space surrounding the earth: judging by their shape and colour, the arms belong to people of different gender and ethnic origin. Together, their hands gently touch the globe, but also give it room to move. Truly a torn world, wounded and fragile. Is it still protected or has it already been abandoned? Does it move? Will it tilt like our climate?

For more information, click here

Learning and getting actively involved together, collecting ideas and donations. For more information on this in German, click here