A couple of days ago I posted some excerpts from Pope Leo’s recent apostolic exhortation “Dilexi Te,” that address what we should believe and say about the poor. Today I want to post some excerpts about the responsibility of the individual towards the poor.
Some of this, by necessity, leans on the material I posted in part I. For example:
- What we legally possess does not belong just to ourselves, in accord with the principle of the universal destination of goods;
- Serving the poor is “an encounter between equals”;
- “Anyone in need, even an enemy, always deserves our assistance;”
- “the poor” is a broad category, including the materially poor, the socially marginalized, “those…in a condition of personal or social weakness,” those who have “no rights, no space, no freedom.” And also: those who are examples of moral and spiritual poverty: those you might be tempted to call “bad people.”
Here’s some excerpts that have to do with the acts of individuals.
Pay attention, don’t be numbed by your own comfort, don’t “discard others without realizing it,” don’t “tolerate” poverty “with indifference”:
[T]he illusion of happiness derived from a comfortable life pushes many people towards a vision of life centered on the accumulation of wealth and social success at all costs, even at the expense of others and by taking advantage of unjust social ideals and political-economic systems that favor the strongest….
This means that a culture still persists — sometimes well disguised — that discards others without even realizing it and tolerates with indifference that millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings.
Do not harden our hearts to what the poor ask of us:
In hearing the cry of the poor, we are asked to enter into the heart of God, who is always concerned for the needs of his children, especially those in greatest need.
If we remain unresponsive to that cry, the poor might well cry out to the Lord against us, and we would incur guilt (cf. Deut 15:9) and turn away from the very heart of God.
No gesture is too small:
The simplicity of that woman’s gesture [anointing Jesus with the costly oil] speaks volumes. No sign of affection, even the smallest, will ever be forgotten, especially if it is shown to those who are suffering, lonely or in need, as was the Lord at that time.
Our works of mercy are a sign, evidence, that our worship is authentic and changes us. The example given is Lk 14:12-14, inviting the poor to the banquet.
[W]orks of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship, which, while giving praise to God, has the task of opening us to the transformation that the Spirit can bring about in us, so that we may all become an image of Christ and his mercy towards the weakest.
In this sense, our relationship with the Lord, expressed in worship, also aims to free us from the risk of living our relationships according to a logic of calculation and self-interest. We are instead open to the gratuitousness that surrounds those who love one another and, therefore, share everything in common.
In this regard, Jesus advises: ‘When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you’ (Lk 14:12-14).
Parable of the last judgment is absolutely not ignorable. We cannot be holy and ignore its demands. (“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”)
The Lord’s appeal to show mercy to the poor culminates in the great parable of the last judgment (cf. Mt 25:31-46), which can serve as a vivid illustration of the Beatitude of the merciful. In that parable, the Lord offers us the key to our fulfillment in life; indeed, ‘if we seek the holiness pleasing to God’s eyes, this text offers us one clear criterion on which we will be judged.’
The clear and forceful words of the Gospel must be put into practice ‘without any “ifs or buts”’ that could lessen their force. Our Lord made it very clear that holiness cannot be understood or lived apart from these demands.’”
The Apostles forbid us to grow rich on the labors of others not justly paid, or to refuse help to those in need (remember from the last post, anyone in need):
James goes on to say: “Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter” (5:3-5).
These are powerful words, even if we would rather not hear them!
A similar appeal can be found in the First Letter of John: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (3:17).
Don’t use your theological reasoning about these texts to give you excuses to distance yourself from their demands, but instead to get closer to the real situations they describe:
The message of God’s word is ‘so clear and direct, so simple and eloquent, that no ecclesial interpretation has the right to relativize it. The Church’s reflection on these texts ought not to obscure or weaken their force, but urge us to accept their exhortations with courage and zeal. Why complicate something so simple? Conceptual tools exist to heighten contact with the realities they seek to explain, not to distance us from them.’
Do not forget, or forget to help, the prisoner:
The early Christians, even in precarious conditions, prayed for and assisted their brothers and sisters who were prisoners, as the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 12:5; 24:23) and various writings of the Fathers attest.
Are we disturbed and bothered by the sight of a poor person? People collected in tents in an urban or suburban homeless encampment, perhaps, or someone injecting drugs on the light-rail train, or a beggar with a sign by the street corner where we come off the expressway? Are we afraid of them, or disgusted by them? Do we avoid eye contact and hurry past?
‘[C]aught up as we are with our own needs, the sight of a person who is suffering disturbs us. It makes us uneasy, since we have no time to waste on other people’s problems. These are symptoms of an unhealthy society. A society that seeks prosperity but turns its back on suffering. May we not sink to such depths! Let us look to the example of the Good Samaritan.’
Are these people not Lazarus to us? Are we hoping they will do labor to comfort us out of our disturbed feelings?
“Every minute we can find a Lazarus if we seek him, and every day, even without seeking, we find one at our door…Therefore do not waste the opportunity of doing works of mercy; do not store unused the good things you possess.”
Consider almsgiving in specific. Maybe we mostly do it by writing a check and mailing it off to a charity with boots on the ground. And that is good, because “no gesture is too small.” But there is another dimension of almsgiving which implies real contact, a social type of almsgiving:
Almsgiving at least offers us a chance to halt before the poor, to look into their eyes, to touch them and to share something of ourselves with them. In any event, almsgiving, however modest, brings a touch of pietas into a society otherwise marked by the frenetic pursuit of personal gain….
Both the Old and New Testaments contain veritable hymns in praise of almsgiving: ‘Be patient with someone in humble circumstances, and do not keep him waiting for your alms.’”
Augustine’s spiritual guide (remember, Leo is an Augustinian) was St. Ambrose, who insisted on the ethical requirement to share material goods:
‘What you give to the poor is not your property, but theirs. Why have you appropriated what was given for common use?’ For the Bishop of Milan [Augustine], almsgiving is justice restored, not a gesture of paternalism.
In his preaching, mercy takes on a prophetic character: he denounces structures that accumulate things and reaffirms communion as the Church’s vocation…. ‘Observing your brothers and sisters, you know if they are in need, but if Christ dwells in you, also be charitable to strangers.’…[Almsgiving] is, so to speak, the ordinary path to conversion for those who wish to follow Christ with an undivided heart.”
That bit, about almsgiving being justice restored, is personally helpful to me. I struggle sometimes with almsgiving (and mostly delegate decisions about our household giving to Mark), because I struggle with gift-giving and gift-receiving.
In ordinary gift-centered occasions, Christmas and birthdays and such, I find it hard to do correctly. This is about me, not about the poor, a self-centered sort of problem, rooted in certain experiences I had growing up and also in a kind of social anxiety. But this concept attributed to St. Augustine, that “almsgiving is justice restored,” may help me disentangle alms from ordinary human gifts. What Augustine says, and what I have had a hard time seeing, is that alms is not an ordinary human gift. It has a different purpose. And thinking on that may help me give alms more… peaceably, I guess, with less worrying about whether I’ve done it correctly.
Assuming that you’ve already made up your mind to give alms, and not deliberately made distinctions about which needy person “deserves” or “doesn’t deserve” your help, it seems that your own feelings of pride or paternalism, or expecting/demanding a certain show of gratitude, would be the main ways to get tripped up.
Yeah, it’s possible to do it wrong. But there are a lot of ways to do it in which “being right” is the last of our concerns.
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