It Is Only For Your Love Alone That The Poor Will Forgive You The Bread You Give Them

This morning some guys and I are going to head downtown to do some homeless outreach and ministry on the streets. This is nothing organized or pre-scripted: to be honest, we're just kind of winging it and praying to be used by the Holy Spirit. Last night my daughter and I made sandwiches and made up some care packages with granola bars, some snacks, toiletries, a Miraculous Medal and Ven Matt Talbot prayer cards. I stuffed the freezer with bottles of water, since it's been in the mid-nineties this week and especially hot and humid. 

I wrote an article recently on some practical ideas of how to practice the works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal. There are many different ways to do this work, and this just compiled a few. What we are doing this morning is pretty basic, but of course goes to our Lord's command in Matthew 25:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink" (Mt 25:35)

In The Key That Opens The Door To Paradise, I wrote about the act of Perfect Contrition, that is, contrition motivated by the love of God rather than the fear of Hell. From the Catechism:

When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect.” Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.

The contrition called “imperfect” is also a gift of God, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It is born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner. Such a stirring of conscience can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will be brought to completion by sacramental absolution. By itself however, imperfect contrition cannot obtain the forgiveness of grave sins, but it disposes one to obtain forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance. (CCC 1452-53), 

What came to me in prayer this morning was that in the act of charity, there is also a kind of perfect and imperfect charity. I imagined that when we arrive on the streets near the train station this morning, walking around with our bags of food and cold water, and are asked, "Why are you doing this? Why are you out there," one could reply in two ways:

"We are doing this because our Lord commanded it." (Mt. 25) "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty. '” (Lk 17:10). And this is a perfectly acceptable way of responding.

But there is also another way, when you encounter someone laying on the street, sweating and hungry, and they ask "Why are you here? Why are you doing this?" to respond:

"Because you are hungry. Because it's hot, and you thirst."

This is the charity motivated not by duty, but by love. When we pray for grace and feel the loneliness, the hunger, the thirst of our brothers and sisters in need, and wish to alleviate that suffering in some small way, this is the motivation of a more perfect charity not bound by duty but by love. We can also only feel it and enter it it when we have felt it ourselves. As St. Mother Teresa observed,

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

We should remember that in "doing our duty," we are also given the great privilege of grace in service. I want to tell the guys too before we set out, "It's ok to give someone you meet today a hug. Ask their name. Tell them they are loved. It might be awkward, but think about the last time someone may have afforded them such comfort. Be prudent, be careful, but don't harden your heart." 

St. John Chrysostom was known to preach such uncomfortable sermons, not in removed, lofty and theological discourses, but earthy and convicting:

"Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise him when he is naked. Do not honor him in church with silk vestments while outside he is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.

…It is such a slight thing I beg…nothing very expensive…bread, a roof, words of comfort. [If the rewards I promised hold no appeal for you] then show at least a natural compassion when you see me naked, and remember the nakedness I endured for you on the cross…I fasted for you then, and I suffer for you now; I was thirsty when I hung on the cross, and I thirst still in the poor, in both ways to draw you to myself to make you humane for your own salvation." (Homily 50 on Matthew)

And St. Vincent de Paul,

"You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them."

I think it's good to "get your hands dirty" in the trenches on the regular if possible, to bring us down from our safe and removed theological perches. Not because we have to (we do), but because we get to. Not because we make any lasting impact, for the "poor you will have with you always;" but because in doing so our hearts soften, become amenable to grace and the realization of our own dependence and wretched state. We also have to remember we are guests in their home, even if that home is the streets. This is where they live, and many have wounds we cannot see from lifetimes of trauma or neglect. We have to tread lightly, respectfully, not as personal messiahs but only as guests doing small things with, hopefully, great love.

 The Lord affords us the opportunity to make sure our faith is not a dead faith, as St. James says, one that manifests in works for our salvation but also in the physical manifestation of the small alleviation of suffering to those in need. It is the practice of mercy that perfects charity, and we can't do that while we remain holed up with our wagons circled in our safe spaces. The work is not for the poor, but for us.

I don't have a script this morning, or a real plan. I'm hoping the Holy Spirit will just guide and protect us, and send those neglected Christs to those whom we are meant to encounter, and that me and the guys too get some training in humility and service in the school of charity. So your prayers are very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.