Taking the Time to Make a Difference

I can never remember the complete list of the seven “Spiritual Works of Mercy,” the ones I memorized in catechism class. The seven Corporal Works of Mercy are easier for me to recall – perhaps because I tend to view the call of the Christian to be active in the world, and it is easy to visualize giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty. There are variations of the list of corporal works, but here is one set of them: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, ransom the captive and bury the dead. Images pop up quickly in my mind of people giving and receiving canned goods at a food pantry, or of a busy parent taking the time to tend to the needs of a sick child. Some of the spiritual works quickly bring pictures to mind. Others are more difficult. A typical version of the list includes these works: instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish sinners, bear wrongs patiently, forgive offences willingly, comfort the afflicted, and pray for the living and the dead. It is easy to picture a parent or a teacher giving instructions in the Catholic faith to a child. I struggle with what it might look like to “bear wrongs patiently.” (Probably because it is not just the mental image – but the personal reality -- that I find difficult.)

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These two lists of works came to mind as I was reading the Autumn 2009 issue of Glenmary Challenge. There in this magazine I saw wonderful images that captured my imagination and helped to know that the only way to fully visualize the corporal and spiritual works of mercy is to see the faces and hands and knees of real people. The Glenmary magazine article by Margaret Gabriel featured the work of lay ministers, “Called to Serve,” who over the past 20 years had helped “establish and maintain a Catholic Church presence in counties where it has never been before.” Gabriel quotes canon law, which she says “allows a bishop to appoint a layperson as the canonical administrator of a parish in the absence of a priest.” She cites the American bishops’ statement, Called and Gifted, as “a reflection on the ways laymen and laywomen were answering the Lord’s call and employing their gifts to take an active and responsible part in the mission of the Church.” Sister Sara Aldridge began leading a Glenmary parish in Vanceburg, Ky., in 1989. Since then, the ministry has spread to Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. Lay people, along with priests who provide sacramental ministry, bring the presence of Christ to this part of the world. In our diocese, we have such pioneers too. Benedictine Sister Mary Terence Knapp began leading a parish, Holy Name Church in Bloomfield, in 1983 and succesfully founded a new parish, St. Nicholas Church in Santa Claus, in 1991.

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The Internet is a wonderful thing. I can enter a few words in a search field and immediately open a page listing the works of mercy. But the list fades when I bring to mind an image of any of the real people who actually live the works of mercy every day. In the words of Jay Gilchrist, a lay pastoral coordinator in Madisonville, Tenn., lay ministers are “doing what Jesus Christ calls us all to do by being about the Kingdom of God.” He concludes, “They’re not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get involved.”

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Where do you see yourself in this picture? If you are a parent, you can probably find occasions for all of them right in your own home. That is where faith and works begin, and grow outward to spread to the world beyond the home. The harvest is great. Are you among the workers?

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