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?
