The Primacy of Charity by Abby Stidham

In recent decades Catholics have taken a back seat in our responsibility for the poor. An emphasis on donating to charities and inter-parish work has taken hold of the average Catholic at the expense of the firsthand work we are truly called to do.

The role of charity is unquestionable in the gospels. But we have lost touch with its primacy in the Christian life. At the height of Christ’s teachings in Matthew, alongside his description of the Second Coming and the “separation of the goats and the sheep,” Christ gives us the corporal works of mercy as the tenants of our salvation: “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me’” (Matt 25:34-35).

The church of a few generations ago ran soup kitchens, clothing drives, made dinner for sick and pregnant neighbors, watched each other’s children. It was composed of a body of volunteers. Go back a few generations further, and Catholics ran hospitals, schools, places for the elderly and mentally ill. It is easy to believe contemporary institutions have taken this work over for the better. But Christ tells us “the poor will always be with you”: so too will their ever-changing needs and consistent desire for personal connection and love. The time is ripe to refit Catholic charity to both.

Places such as the New York Catholic Worker, where I serve as a volunteer, attempt this every day. It is not only a consistent place to get a meal or charge your phone, but to commune and nurture relationships between those serving and those being served. It is not uncommon to see a volunteer join a table during the soup line to talk sports or hear a story from someone whom the volunteers consider a friend. “Man shall not live on bread alone.” Without a connection to the poor, the role of charity in our and their spiritual life is useless.

The example Christ set is clear as to how the two should interact. He didn’t stand on the other side of a foldout table, he didn’t refuse to serve on account of a person’s lifestyle or sins, and he certainly didn’t pay someone else to do the work for him: he encountered the sinner, held the leper’s hand, walked with the prostitute. He broke social, religious, and ethnic barriers to heal. We are called to love the poor—not tolerate them, not see them as faceless sinners.

A few weeks ago someone visited our Worker house hoping to start a similar house with a property he owns. Knowing the homeless services are abundant in his community, his interest lies in housing kids coming out of foster care. Such a place would not only fill their immediate needs but equip them with work and faith before heading out to the world on their own. The Catholic charity of today should be just this—sacrificial, creative, proactive, mutual.

Like all Workers, the house would be run 24/7 by himself and other volunteers, embracing Christ’s teaching to the rich man, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Matt 19:21). The financial sacrifice is only Christ’s first ask. In following him, we must orient our lives around charity as he did.

The church is struggling on its own, some may say, so why add another task onto its laypeople? But did Christ not give us the very key to reinvigorating a slumbering mass, for making new these age-old issues? This going out to serve, and the visibility inherent to it, is precisely what demonstrates that the deep traditions of the church are simultaneously the growing, active, ever-new acts of love we are called to carry out in any era. Let us be ambitious in our good works! The Catholic has endless access to money, time, and help, as long as we prioritize work with the poor as it really is: an encounter with Christ. ♦

Abby Stidham is a regular volunteer at the New York Catholic Worker and runs a print-only news publication in the city. 

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Three People Sharing a Meal, 1853