If You Want To Get, You Have To Give

 

The past few months I've been feeling especially lonely. Although I'm not one for big groups, I like one:one interactions and connecting with people, both old and new. But it's a busy time of life for everyone, so sometimes these interactions are few and far between. 

As a writer (or rather, "one who writes a lot"), one of my favorite past times is letter writing. Before email, I would write letters to friends from wherever I was traveling in the world, or from home. I have a box full of letters received from people in my life in the attic. But like developing film, it's a past time that has gone by the wayside. I can't remember the last time I got a letter from someone in the mail, or even written one myself. Sometimes I'll get an email correspondence, but even that is getting rarer.  

Then it occurred to me: I was feeling sorry for myself, but it didn't need to stay that way. I could do something about it. So I found a Catholic organization in Texas that connects death row inmates with pen pals. I had corresponded and visited inmates at the state prison years ago, and would go into the county prison before COVID to read the bible to a group of about forty inmates once a month. But they never re opened after COVID, and so I just kind of forgot about it.

The Texas organization never got back to me (I don't know if it's still active), but the Order of Malta also runs a prison pen pal program, and they did respond to my inquiry and set me up with a prison in Montana to write to guys who are incarcerated. I sent off my first letter today to a young man who is doing five years in state prison for assaulting a police officer. I'll share my letter to him below.

Sometimes we think we need to do big things for God; but we often neglect the 'low hanging fruit' that is within our reach. Anybody can write as a corporal work of mercy. You can do it from the comfort of your home, all for the cost of a stamp. When I thought about how nice it might be for me to get a letter in the mail, how much more so for a man who has no family (this man's father is in jail, and his mother was killed) and no freedom? 

I realized that if you want to get grace (or forgiveness, or comfort, or love), sometimes you have to give it too. So that's what I'm doing. Thank you, Lord, for the grace and opportunity!

Dear D___,

How are you? Thanks for corresponding with me, and I hope this letter finds you well. I also wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to pray for you, and I hope you will do the same for me. 

Although I have been a Catholic for about twenty five years now, it was not always this way. I came into the Church at the age of eighteen, when God “adopted” me as his son through friendship with Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, when I was alone in the wilderness on a backpacking trip at the age of seventeen. Before that I had led a sinful life with various struggles and did not have peace, joy, or know how I could find the key to happiness. I explored Buddhism, Hare Krishna, and other esoteric religions. But it was God revealing Himself in Christ and in the scriptures (the Bible) that made me realize there was hope for me too, and that it is only in Christ that we are saved, for Jesus, it says in scripture, is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).

I don’t know if you have any religious faith or not, but maybe we can talk about that in future correspondence if you feel comfortable doing so. I did want to share something with you from St. Paul’s letter to the Phillippians, which shows that despite one’s circumstances, the man of God can find peace and freedom. “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:11-13). St. Paul was shipwrecked, thrown in prison, beaten, accosted, starved…but he maintained his peace and joy. Because, as he says, “What can separate us from the love of God? For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 38:39). 

What’s interesting is that St. Paul was at first a persecutor of Christians, ordering them to be murdered. But Jesus appeared to him and chose him to spread the Gospel as an Apostle. Moses, likewise, was a murderer who assaulted and killed an Egyptian and was a fugitive on the run after the did. Yet God used him as well. King David was an adulterer and ordered a man to be killed as well. God can use any of us, despite our pasts. As King David prayed to God in the Psalms, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (Ps 51:7). 

Although I am married with three children, God must always come first in a man’s life. Because if he is not right with God, nothing else will fall into place correctly. Just as in recovery, one must turn himself over to a Higher Power (God) and admit he is not in control before sobriety can happen. 

I look forward to writing you in the future if you are able to write back. I will be praying for you as well. St. Dismas (the Good Thief) is a powerful intercessor. Here is a prayer you can pray for grace: 

“Glorious Saint Dismas, you alone of all the great Penitent Saints were directly canonized by Christ Himself; you were assured of a place in Heaven with Him "this day" because of the sincere confession of your sins to Him in the tribunal of Calvary and your true sorrow for them as you hung beside Him in that open confessional; you who by the direct sword thrust of your love and repentance did open the Heart of Jesus in mercy and forgiveness even before the centurion's spear tore it asunder; you whose face was closer to that of Jesus in His last agony, to offer Him a word of comfort, closer even than that of His Beloved Mother, Mary; you who knew so well how to pray, teach me the words to say to Him to gain pardon and the grace of perseverance; and you who are so close to Him now in Heaven, as you were during His last moments on earth, pray to Him for me that I shall never again desert Him, but that at the close of my life I may hear from Him the words He addressed to you: "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."

I hope to hear from you soon. 

In Christ,

R

A Practical Guide To The Works Of Mercy

 

One of the lamentable pendulum swings in the Church today is to associate the works of mercy we are commanded by the Lord throughout scripture to perform with the "SJW" camp. It's not an unmerited reaction: at the small CINO college where I used to work, the Catholic identify of the institution was summed up in a pithy "we do service." And indeed, the students made sandwiches for the homeless, ran clothing drives, and visited the elderly sisters in the convent's nursing home.  All good things that we are called to as Christians--and all things a secular humanist could do just as well. 

So what makes Christian charity different? Love undergirds everything in the true Christian life, as the Apostle writes, "let all your things be done in charity" (1 Cor 16:14), while charity comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith (1 Tim 1:5). 

In the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul also writes of the different gifts of the Spirit given to the brethren:

"And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Ep 4:11-12)

Likewise, the Church lays out for us once again a "both/and" charge to do the works of mercy-- corporal and spiritual. Whereas a Social Worker (who may or may not be Christian) may devote his or her life to the former as a matter of vocation (in the secular sense), a devout Christian may see his work primary as spiritual in nature: praying, making reparations, etc. And indeed some cloistered religious do devote their life to this noble calling 24/7 (Carthusians, Carmelites, etc) 

But for many of us lay persons living in the world, I think a both/and approach is appropriate for our state in life. The degree to which we are able to serve and in what capacity given our constraints varies, but I do think many of us do structure our lives in a way which precludes much "space" for charity--the way we often given "from our surplus, not our need" (Mk 12:44) when God calls for first fruits. As Catholics, we know we are capable of structuring our lives to put "first things first," i.e., the Divine Law, as evidenced in making Sunday Mass and the laying fallow of the Sabbath a priority regardless of our schedules and circumstances. But do we also prioritize the practical exercise of charity to evidence our faith in the same way?

It is harder to do when we see the exercise of charity and the works of mercy as an obligation (which it is) rather than an opportunity and means of blessing for both giver and those that receive it. This is not always easy to do, especially for those who tirelessly work in fields in which their exercise of this work goes unappreciated and taken for granted. But this, too, is a blessing from the Lord, who sees in secret and repays in kind (Mt 6:4). And the Lord makes this a practical opportunity, for "when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; And thou shalt be blessed, because they have not wherewith to make thee recompense: for recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection of the just (Lk 14:13-14).

So, we are called to exercise charity, to perform the works of mercy--both corporal and spiritual. So, what are they, and what are some ways we can live them out in a concrete manner? See below (note, in the interest of brevity I may share some links of things I've written already on the particular work of mercy from past posts):

THE CORPORAL

Feed the Hungry

Give Drink to the Thirsty

Clothe the Naked

I am grouping these three corporal works together because in the hierarchy of human needs and in our modern society, they can be performed simultaneously. At our old parish, we would pack snack bags with granola bars, fruit, sandwiches, etc with bottles of water and do a "walk around the block" before Mass so our kids could hand them out to the veterans and others who seemed like they could use some nourishment. We also encouraged them to pray beforehand and ask the Holy Spirit to "send someone" into their purview to receive this offering.

In recent years we have pulled back on donations to formal charities and instead have also prayed for opportunities to exercise this in a way that hurts a little more with particular families in need. In more than one occasion we were made aware of large families in which the husband had been laid off, or injured; in many of these instances the families were not destitute but it was also harder for them to qualify for aid (the "fall through the cracks" dilemma) and we wanted to simply ease the burden for them. In every circumstance so far, they were eventually able to get back on their feet and use the money for groceries, mortgages, and other necessary expenses. I try to write the check quickly, for an amount bigger than I would rationalize if I was using my head, send it off and forget it was ever written. 

Visit the Imprisoned

This work of mercy, too, can be a literal application. It took me a while to get clearances at our local county prison, but once I did I made monthly visits to both large groups of men (to read the scriptures to them out loud) and to individual inmates. Not everyone may be able to do this, but in lieu of physical visits there is always the opportunity to be a pen-pal to someone who is incarcerated. What's nice about this is even busy homemakers or working dads can carve out a half hour to write a letter and all it costs is the price of a stamp. When was the last time you got a letter in the mail? Isn't it nice?

Shelter the Homeless

Sheltering the homeless can be taken literally, but for many of us with families and small children, it is not always prudent and takes discernment. However, one thing we have done as a family is host families of limited means for a few nights whose child with cancer needed treatment at a nearby city hospital when Ronald McDonald house was full. We did this through this organization, which is not religious but nevertheless provides a good service for those who may not be able to afford hotel accommodations. 

Visit the Sick

This afternoon my daughter and I paid a visit to an elderly woman in a rehab facility. This is really low-hanging fruit that really cheers the neglected Christs in places like this, many of whom do not have families to visit and suffer from crushing loneliness. We brought some flowers from the yard in a jelly jar and a Miraculous Medal on a chain as a small gift. We stayed and chatted for about ten minutes total. It's also a nice thing to do with your kids, since the elderly seem to really love seeing them. I got the contact from our parish secretary who knew of shut-ins and those unable to get to Mass. It wasn't complicated, took no special skill, and took all of half an hour. 

Bury the Dead

This is one where many us, unless we are undertakers, may not do. We have a funeral to go to in a couple weeks, but are of course not actually doing the burying. But we did have a Mass said for the deceased, which is a great spiritual benefit to their souls. 

THE SPIRITUAL

Admonish the Sinner

See my post Why (and How) To Admonish a Brother In Charity. This can be a very hard work of mercy, and takes discernment, but may save his soul in the end. 

Instruct the Ignorant

I had a co-worker mention that she went to Mass recently because her son was going through CCD and doing his first Penance. I knew she didn't go to Mass regularly, but mentioned she received Communion. I mentioned (as charitably as I could) that the Church expects us to go to Confession at least once a year, and always when we are in a state of mortal sin, and that not attending Mass every Sunday and HDO is a mortal sin. I emailed her a detailed examination of conscience and told her to read it and encouraged her to join her son and make use of the Sacrament of Penance. She admitted she is a "bad Catholic" for rarely attending Mass outside of Christmas and Easter and never going to Confession. But at least she can't claim ignorance now.

Sometimes we need to pop people's bubble as a spiritual work of mercy, regardless of how uncomfortable it is and how badly they have been catechized so they no longer have any excuse. We can do it charitably, but we need to do it when we have the opportunity, or we will be judged just as harshly as a sin of omission.

Counsel the Doubtful

Comfort the Sorrowful

My wife is good about being available to women with things like a kitchen table and a cup of tea. She's a good listener, and a good encourager too. Many people today are struggling with doubts and anxiety, and we can encourage by making time and space for them in invitation. As St. Paul says, "encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing" (1 Thes 5:11) And when we encounter someone who is downcast and hurting, we share their cross, mourning with those who mourn (Rom 12:15). "Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is the one thing hurried people don't have."

Bear Wrongs Patiently

See what this looks like in my post By Your Words You Shall Be Condemned, where I cover some of St. Ambrose's treatise on the matter. 

Forgive All Injuries

Forgiveness can take really deep work, and grace is necessary for it to be perfected. See Forgive Quickly, Before You Change Your Mind. If we do not forgive our brother, our heavenly Father will not forgive us. So it's important!

Pray For The Living And The Dead

See my article The Tender Favor of Indulgences for more on this efficacious and much neglected work of mercy.

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We will be judged on our tangible charity (Mt 25) and true religion is caring for widows and orphans (Ja 1:27). But it doesn't have to be complicated! As mentioned above, a lot of these are low-hanging fruit, and don't take any special skill--just charity, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to anyone who asks (Mt 7:11). You may also find you do not hit all of these, and that's okay too. But it's also okay to "try out" different works to round out your character as a Christian. These are just some suggestions, and I only share what we have done not as any kind of merit, but to give some tangibility and examples of what one can do. The perfect is the enemy of the good. As one of my friends is fond of saying, "half the battle is just showing up!"

Free Indeed

Every fourth Wednesday of the month I drive to the local county prison with a Bible in hand. Although I obtained my clearances through the umbrella of our local parish, I make these visits alone. I leave my cell phone in the car, turn in my keys to the intake guard, and get my badge. I pass through the metal detectors and get swiped, lift up my shoes to make sure I'm not smuggling anything in, and then make my way down the cinderblock hallway, take a right, and wait at the green wrought metal double gate to grind open. When the first door closes behind me, the second one opens in front of me. When the second one closes behind me, I inform the guard at the control station, make my way to the chapel, and pray about what to share that evening.

I never know before I go, trying to remember that "the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them" (Lk 12:12). I also never know how many guys the Lord will send me. Sometimes I meet with as few as two inmates, and (on evenings like this week), as many as thirty. When the guard unlocked the doors to the chapel, the men just kept filing in until almost every seat in the metal pews was taken. I shook every one of their hands and asked them to have a seat, made the sign of the cross, and opened with a prayer of thanks and blessing over them, the guards, and for God to be made present among us in the reading of the Word.

I thankfully have enough freedom and leeway to approach my hour with them however the Lord see fit. Some volunteers do a kind of 'life-lessons' series, others may go over the Sunday Mass readings. Personally, I like to just expose the men to the Word of God by reading aloud, pausing periodically for any questions or discussions as they come up. For the past few months I had been reading from Romans, but after finishing it up last month, this past Wednesday I decided to read from the first letter of St. Peter. I am not a theologian or biblical scholar, so I keep any discussions relatively fundamental--sin, death, redemption, concupiscence, the Fall, the need to forgive our enemies, love, virtue, and our need for a Savior. One theme I keep going back to when expounding on the Gospel message to this particular group of guys is the freedom of the believer in Christ.

I've been off of social media for three weeks now. The uncomfortable and disorienting detox period has passed, and I feel a little like waking up after LASIK surgery--things are a little more clear, without the need for contacts. Deb checked me out a book from the library written by a former Silicon Valley pioneer of virtual reality titled "Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now." This particular author is on the left side of the socio-political spectrum, but as an insider who helped develop the kind of social networking sites we take for granted today, it was interesting to see how vehemently he felt they were doing harm to society and making slaves out of the unwitting consumers in a Matrix-like illusion of pseudo-connectedness. We are being used, and we don't even realize it. But there remains a power within that very consumer to opt-out--we still have free will to not participate.

The men and women "on the inside" can also feel like cogs in a machine as well, slaves to their circumstance and "the system." They are assigned numbers and ordered where to go and when to eat and watched by surveillance at all times. They know what it feels like to not be free. And yet "everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34). "Do you see the connection?" I told them. "God gives us the grace, by baptism, to resist sin. He gives us everything we need in cooperation with grace and by faith to choose to do His will. And yet as we read in Romans, we 'do that which we do not want to do' when we sin. We read:

"Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor" (1 Peter 2:16-17)

"You can start today, right now. It costs nothing. It does not depend on your external circumstances.  No guard and no other man can take away the freedom you have in Christ, the power you have in the Gospel, the joy you have in doing good and resisting evil. When you suffer for doing good, as Peter says, don't be surprised. But it is better to suffer for doing good than doing evil."

It was weird to be just reading the word of God and expounding on the basic truths of Christian belief by the grace of the Holy Spirit (I just opened my mouth and He gave me the words) to a room packed full of more or less hardened men, men of all races and class, who were rapt, as if they had never heard such a thing. Many of the men suffered from addictions and bad habits which kept them in a cycle of recidivism. There is much going against them, especially when they get out. But though they were behind walls, they were free. They were free to resist or choose sin, they were free to retaliate or forgive, they were free to pray or ignore prayer, they were not slaves to their circumstances if they were believers in Christ because joy is a deep well that goes with you wherever you find yourself for the man redeemed and ransomed.

This is great power, I told them, the power recounted in Acts by our Lord when he tells the disciples "you shall receive power," the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). If you have this power, don't give it up or forfeit it by committing sin. If you don't have this power, this rock on which to stand, you can ask for it and the God of mercy will freely give it to you. If you are not baptized, be baptized, and receive the grace necessary to be saved, for "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit (Jn 3:5).

I was getting hoarse by the end of the hour, and closed with a prayer and the sign of the cross. He had given me the words, as nervous as I always am when I walk behind the gates without a plan or anything premeditated. It is a great privilege to visit these men inside and to simply read the Word of God to them. There is great power in the Gospel, a power that no man can take away from you. The man of Christ, whether in the world or behind bars, is a slave to God. He is free indeed.

You Visited Me

Received my first letter back from the inmate I've started corresponding with. His name is John.

I'm thankful I grew up at least half-out of the era of email, texting and technology. I still have a box full of letters I wrote and received over the years in college and after college--lined paper, envelope, stamps and all. I saved them all and often would make carbons or at least retype my letters to others. 

There's something exciting about getting a letter in the mail. Like getting your film developed. I would always make a cup of tea and sit down and carefully tear open the envelope and read and re-read what was written. You know the person writing took time and care, because it was by hand and usually thoughtful, they had to go to the trouble to mail it, buy a stamp, etc. I tend to forget (or at least take for granted) that when we hear the Word of God in the Epistles in the New Testament, we are listening to the recitation of a letter--letters formally composed with thought, care, and divine inspiration, and sent to particular communities.

Dorothy Day and St. Teresa of Calcutta were a big influence for me in learning how to "approach" the poor, the infirm, the forgotten, our enemies, those in prison: We should do so as if approaching Christ the King Himself, who comes to us in this life under guise. Take Matthew 25 *literally*. Take the works of mercy *literally*. Remember the words in 1 John 3:18: "Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth." It gives you new eyes, an incarnated spirituality, and allows you to view those who the world has forgotten and who are thorns in your side as God's V.I.P.s. What an exciting honor to serve the King of Kings, as Christ humbled himself and gave us an example in the washing of his disciple's feet and showed us how to live as his followers. We can't always do big things. But sometimes we can do little things.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make some tea. Please keep John in your prayers.