Longest Night of the Year

Dear friends,Tomorrow is the Longest Night of the Year, December 21, which also marks Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. Join our community at Sunset, 5:19p; you in your home, and our guests in our home.  Together, we will call to mind all people who are experiencing homelessness, especially those who are living outside in our community, and we will remember and honor those who have died experiencing homelessness or housing instability.  Tomorrow at Sunset, 5:19pm, join us in taking the following actions:

JOIN ONLINEJoin Kim M. Webb, Executive Director of the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky, on our Facebook Page for a special message and learning about homelessness in our community.

click here to access the stream on Facebook

LIGHT A CANDLELight a candle in your home. Prayers, meditations, and readings from local and national leaders will be available in the Facebook Event.

scroll down to view messages from our local community

PRESS SHAREShare the Sunset Post on your own feed. The post will appear in the Facebook event at sunset on December 21.

Click here to visit the Facebook event

MAKE A GIFTMake a donation to support the Life Saving, Life Changing mission of the Emergency Shelter of Northern Kentucky, sheltering our guests every night of the year.

Click here to make a donation to support ESNKY

What’s going on in shelter?

Tomorrow night, guests of ESNKY will have the opportunity to commemorate Homeless Person’s Memorial Day. Many people experiencing homelessness don’t get the dignity of a proper burial or celebration of life. This small, in-person vigil for our guests brings the names and stories of these loved ones to live, allowing them us to give them the honor and respect they deserve.ESNKY has quietly worked behind the scenes to support guests who have passed away, including notifying families, paying for funeral costs, assisting in identification, and even giving eulogies. Thank you to our supporters who allow ESNKY to lead this behind-the-scenes, dignified effort.

Prayer for HomelessnessSister of Notre Dame Marla Monahan, Vicar for the Religious for the Diocese of Covington, adapted from Australian Catholic Social Justice Council

Good and loving God,we bring to you in prayer this longest night of the year,all men, women and children who sufferbecause they have no shelter.Inspire us to act in justice for all peoples who are sufferingthe hardships of homelessness,and to see in them the dignity of a brother and sistermade in your image and loved by you.Let us know how we are called to love and servethose who are poor and marginalized.We are grateful for all your blessings.Show us how to share them.

Amen.

Homeless, Not Hopeless!

Justin Daniels, 2017, written after spending a night without a home

I see the way they look at me,
a homeless man with a heart of gold.
They see a lesser being of humanity,
a homeless man lost in the cold.

I feel a bad chill from this wintry place,
it's cold outside, please lend me a hand!
They ignore my troubles, and laugh in my face,
they're cold inside, I don't understand.

I seek shelter in an unlikely place,
they let me in, they tell me to rest.
A place known for sin and total disgrace;
the rumors were lies. They treated me best.

The morning now rises, I've survived the night,
this world has filth, but not all is a mess.
To see in the dark, there is still yet a light,
for this man with no home, he is not yet hopeless!

Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025

submitted by the Catholic Diocese of Covington

Happiness is our human vocation, a goal to which all aspire.But what is happiness? What is the happiness that we await and desire?Not some fleeting pleasure, a momentary satisfaction that, once experienced, keeps us longing for more, in a desperate quest that leaves our hearts unsated and increasingly empty. We aspire to a happiness that is definitively found in the one thing that can bring us fulfilment, which is love.Thus, we will be able to say even now: I am loved, therefore I exist; and I will live forever in the love that does not disappoint, the love from which nothing can ever separate me.Let us listen once more to the words of the Apostle: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).