Works of Mercy and the Gift of Friendship

We went to the funeral yesterday of a wonderful man. We've known him for decades and although we weren't close family friends, we had many connections through the pro-life movement. As we were getting ready I thought what a great opportunity it was to practice both a corporal work of mercy, bury the dead, and a spiritual work of mercy, pray for the living and the dead. Not only that, but we saw several people we knew and rejoiced in the brief moment allowing us to renew our friendships.

So many people are gifts, some for a lifetime, some for a season. A relative once questioned my statement about being a friend to another relative whom my husband and I supported at a crucial time. She said, "You aren't friends." It was true that we hadn't had much contact for several years, but I still objected. My reply was to ask if the Good Samaritan was a friend to the wounded Jew. How much of a relationship did they have? Did the Good Samaritan ever meet the man again or had he already recovered and gone when he returned to the inn? To stand by someone in need and then lose touch altogether or even go low contact doesn't erase a time of friendship when someone may have been in great need.

Suffering? Join It To the Cross of Christ

Today is the feast of the Sacred Heart. It offers an invitation to each of us to look on our sufferings as fuel. The heart of Christ is a burning furnace of charity. We can place the logs of our sufferings in that furnace and watch them burst into flame creating embers mixed with the glowing embers of Christ's love. 

Remember St. Paul's admonition in Romans 12:20 to heap burning coals on the heads of our enemies, the burning coals of conversion. Let us never miss an opportunity to love our neighbor with both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. 

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine.

It's a Spiritual Work of Mercy: Pray for the Living and the Dead.

I got a message this morning from a dear friend whom I've known since she was a teenager. I did a reading at her wedding back in the early 80s. She asked for prayers for her daughter, a busy mom of many, who is in the hospital with pneumonia. I've received many prayer requests lately: from a young father who's very sick, from an internet friend who lost his job and is near retirement age with not even a thin parachute for his golden years, from a number of sick family members including my sister in a nursing home, and from a number of other suffering souls. I've been keeping the Poor Clares busy with all the requests for their intercessory prayers.

When Are you Being Uncharitable?

I recently had a comment on one of my blog posts from someone who said Barack Obama is one generation removed from the jungle. It was an unnecessary and gratuitous slur and because of the term "jungle bunny" has racist undertones. When I admonished the anonymous poster for his lack of charity, he wrote back that after reading my blog and newsletter for a number of years, he didn't think charity was a requirement. Wow! Take that!

Actually, charity is important to me and I try to be charitable in my writing. These days writing about the hard truth isn't easy, because, as Rebecca Teti, a contributor to Faith and Family Magazine recently wrote in Someone’s wrong on the internet, many expect writers to avoid anything that might make anyone feel bad. So writers can't discuss abortion because it makes aborted women feel guilty. They must keep mum about the depravity of homosexual behavior because that's intolerant and lacks compassion. Remarriage after divorce, condemnation of public scandals, praying at abortion mills -- they are all off limits lest writing about them makes somebody feel bad. And so it goes.As Teti says, the only conversation left is the weather. She concludes that, "this privileging of passions endangers rational thinking about the common good." Amen!

I think the individual who commented on my blog about my lack of charity is one of those who believes speaking the hard truth is intrinsically uncharitable. Teti points out that many evaluate content using their emotional responses as SCUD missiles to annhilate conversation about particular issues. Here's her prescription for a cure: "Only by holding ourselves to a standard outside ourselves, only by liberating our ideas from our passions, can we reason clearly, debate productively and form a more perfect union." Indeed. Everything is not about myself, and if I make it so, I'm trapped in a tiny little world that begins and ends with my own skin.

I'd be interested to know if readers think I'm uncharitable. (Underline that word think. This is about reason and evidence.) Please post if you like, but I expect concrete examples from the blog or the website. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, this isn't about feelings remember. It's about the truth spoken in love. And if I'm being uncharitable it would be an act of mercy to tell me so. Because if I'm lacking in charity, as St. Paul says, I'm a clanging gong.

But keep in mind that charity is not synonymous with "being nice." The gospel definition of charity is to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. Fr. John Hardon says it means to love as Christ loves with a selflessness that always looks to the good of the other. 

Remember the corporal and spiritual works of mercy are practical examples of charity and among them are instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and admonish the sinner. That sometimes requires addressing difficult issues that may make someone "feel" bad. If a person's actions ARE bad, maybe that feeling is just what he needs to spur him to repentance.

By the way, I will not be posting any anonymous comments for this blog entry. I never say anything that I'm not willing to stand behind. So, while I welcome comments, I will not post any from "Anonymous."