I recently went to Mass at a simple little church in Seffner, Florida, named after St. Francis of Assisi. It was clearly not a rich church with all the fancy trimmings — but it had something more precious than gold.
You see, the congregation takes seriously Christ’s words in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “I was hungry and you gave to me eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in: naked and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison and you came to me.”
The disciples were perplexed and asked him when they’d ever seen him in such terrible circumstances.
His answer revealed the deeply mystical dimension of Christianity, “As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”
In short, we encounter God in the most surprising places — the street corner, the prison, the hospital, the nursing home, the homeless shelter.
Christian acts of mercy differ radically from secular social work. The social worker needn’t believe in God when she helps the poor, but the Christian seeks the face of Christ as he ministers to suffering people.
Christ’s words in St. Matthew’s Gospel inspired “the corporal works of mercy,” which entail feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, sheltering the homeless and burying the dead.
As an example, this Florida congregation hands out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot coffee and cookies each day to any needy person who stops by. Once a week, the congregation hosts a hot supper for the hungry, free of charge.
When I was there, the announcements included a call for new or gently used shoes, socks and underwear for the church’s Clothing Closet, which helps folks struggling to afford life’s necessities.
On the way out of Mass, I noticed two slots in the wall, where people could give money — one marked simply “the poor” and the other earmarked “dinner ministry.”
What intrigued me was the hands-on aspect of this congregation’s ministry. Many of us contribute money to organizations that provide food, shelter and clothing to the poor, but we may never meet a poor person face to face.
Mother Teresa mentioned that needy people often long for kind words from people who are helping them. As she put it, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
It can be tempting to judge the young, apparently healthy man who stands by the roadside with a “will work for food” sign. It’s easy to say, “He could easily get a job! He’s just lazy.”
But he might be suffering from a mental illness or addiction that makes finding — and keeping — a job impossible.
The Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta has a sandwich-making ministry in which volunteers prepare hundreds of lunches for a downtown shelter with food donated by the congregation. They also assemble snack bags that are handed out daily to hungry people at the Cathedral.
No questions are asked, no papers are signed, no judgments are made.
Christ didn’t say to feed the hungry unless they were strong enough to find a job, nor did he say to visit prisoners only if they were sorry for their crimes.
And mysteriously enough, his words to his disciples were prophetic because as he died on the cross, he was thirsty, hungry, imprisoned and naked — and no one showed him mercy.
His message about “the least of these” requires a leap of faith in our hearts. When we show mercy to the misfits, the unwanted, the homeless and the dying, we are in a mystical way ministering to God himself.
