Recently I
was shopping in a big department store here in Sarasota, and it was
my second time there in a few days (I nearly always end up having to
change things!). The second time I was there a young man came
up to me and asked me if I was a religious minister of some kind.
He had helped me the first time too. I told him I was a
Catholic priest and he wanted to know if he could ask me something.
So I said, ‘sure!’ He said, ‘What do you think is the
best way to deal with people begging on the street?’ I smiled
when he asked me this and I told him it is one of the more difficult
things we are continually faced with and there is never an easy
answer to it.
I know from speaking to social workers and people
who work with the homeless that more often than not you don’t
really help people on the street when you give them money. You
are often feeding an addiction of some kind. Having said that
they are obviously a lot worse off than me, no matter how you figure
it which makes it all the more difficult to pass by. We are
told many times in the Scriptures that the poor will always be with
us (Mk 14:7, Mt 26:11, Jn 12: 8, Deut 15:11) and we have a duty to
look after them, but we must also be wise as to what is the best way
to help. However, without a doubt the most important thing is
that we treat each person we meet with dignity. Whether we decide to give money or not to someone begging doesn’t mean we
cannot smile or acknowledge them. They are people that will be
with us in heaven hopefully. Just because things haven’t
worked out well for them now doesn’t mean it won’t change.
We have a duty to look after them.
A temptation
in many cities today is to ‘hide’ the poor, keep them out of
sight, because we don’t like the ‘messiness’ of people begging
and the discomfort that this causes. However, the Lord has
given us these people to care for too and they have just as much a
right to be part of our towns as we do. Just because it doesn’t
suit us is no reason to ignore them. Remember the story of the
rich man and Lazarus the beggar at his gates (See Luke 16:19-31).
The rich man was condemned, not because he was wealthy but because he
ignored the poor man who was right under his nose.
In today’s
Gospel we are shown something interesting. First when the man
asks Jesus what he must do to get to heaven, Jesus tells him to keep
the commandments, firstly to love God with our heart, mind and soul
and secondly to love our neighbor as ourself. The order is
important. Then when he asks Jesus, ‘But who is my neighbor,’
Jesus tells him the story of the good Samaritan. Something that
we may not appreciate from the story is how much the Samaritans were
despised by the Jewish people. They could see absolutely no
good in them. Jesus was showing them (and us today) that
goodness can be found in everyone, even in people we despise or may
be prejudiced against. The people who were expected to do good
(the priest and Levite) did not, and the last person on earth that
they would have considered good did the most loving thing of all.
But perhaps the key to the story is the commandments that Jesus
quoted and the order that they come in. Our first duty is to
love God above all else. Only then are we called to love our
neigbour. Why? Because the strength we get to love our neighbor
comes from our relationship with God. The closer we remain to
God, or the more our relationship with God grows, the more we are
able to see those around us who are in need and help them. Our
neighbor is simply whoever is in need of help, even if they despise
us or believe quite differently to us.
It is
interesting that Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters
continually take people in off the street to allow them to die with
dignity. They clean them up and they look after them as best
they can, but they don’t try to convert them. Most of them
would be Hindu or Muslim. They simply love them and treat them
with dignity. They are able to do that because they love God
first and that is where their strength and inspiration comes from.
Needless to say they speak more about God by their actions than
anything they could possibly say.
‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. And you must love your neighbor as yourself.’
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