Corporal Works of Mercy - your way of participating

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We get so involved in our daily lives, it is so easy to forget about some of the things we are asked to do as Catholics I thought it might be helpful to the CAF community for us all to talk about how we perform the CWOM. It might serve as a reminder for some, inspiration to work on this, creative or low cost ideas for others.

What is YOUR way of working in these areas?
Corporal Works of Mercy

To feed the hungry.
To give water to the thirsty.
To clothe the naked.
To shelter the homeless.
To visit the sick.
To visit the imprisoned, or ransom the captive.
To bury the dead.
 
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People in nursing homes are dying for a visit.
Seriously, if you are ever tempted to feel bad about your life, visit is a nursing home. You’ll find people grateful to see you, no matter how deep a hole you are in.
 
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At this point, I generally donate money to charities that are providing food, water, and shelter. There are lots of such charities available via dioceses promoting them in the USA, or if you want to donate overseas you can use Missio. My experience in the USA has been that these places generally have enough volunteers and that they prefer to get volunteers through some sort of organized group, like a workplace will send a group or a church will have a whole youth group working on something once a month. They don’t really want people walking in off the street to donate time as they aren’t set up to manage that.

I was involved in prison pro bono and writing to somebody in prison for a while. (The person I wrote to was somebody I knew before they went in. They got out and went about their life and we have had little contact since, for various reasons. They seem to be doing okay from what I see and hear and have a new spouse and family.)
It was a valuable experience to have, but there are certain risks and difficulties inherent in doing it that made me decide not to continue with that as of now.

As for burying the dead, I’ve been doing a ship ton of that with my own relatives lately, sad to say.

I’ve considered trying to find and get involved in some type of nursing home visiting program. I had to spend a lot of time in those places visiting my own mom and it seemed like some of the other people didn’t have many visitors. Also my friend’s mom (who is elderly herself) is a nursing home visitor. I feel especially drawn to helping elderly people because of my mom and in-laws; I feel better doing that than I do working with kids, for example. (I have no kids of my own and the last time I was involved in a volunteer program for kids, which was supposed to be helping them with reading, I had a weird situation with one of the priests running it, which turned me off from further involvement.)
 
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I coordinate volunteers and volunteer myself for local soup kitchen and bring communion to hospitalized.
 
I’ve done the soup kitchen twice it was great! I would love to do more, but with rwo jobs, it is tough.
 
Our youth group made up care packages for the homeless. They were ziplock bags with a pair of sox, toothbrush, toothpaste, water bottle, granola bars, and a card with addresses and numbers of service organizations like Catholic Relief Services.
 
My kids have a blood disease which causes anemia. My oldest has had 5 transfusions. They will never be able to donate blood so I try to do it for all of us.
 
Burying dead… I guess I should get around to burying the urns containing the remains of two of my grandparents. I wasn’t the executor, but, eh…

As a prosecutor, I don’t go to visit people in jails 🙂
 
I have an autoimmune disease (psoriasis). They wouldn’t want my blood if I paid them to take it 😛
 
These days, there are coroners and morticians taking care of the dead. But we’ve found a way to honor the spirit of this commandment.

An innocent young man was gunned down near our community garden. It was a shock in the normally peaceful neighborhood. My children and I now tend to the memorial. We already have a water source at the garden plot, so we bring it over to water the potted plants and freshen the water in the flower vases. Sometimes I’ll pick up a bouquet from farmers market and add it there. Then we say a prayer for the deceased.

One thought on quenching thirst is to support clean water in countries that lack it. Catholic Relief Services has a program targeted to that endeavor.
 
I think Cardinal Sarah has a point. We are never going to be able to “eradicate poverty” because there are always going to be situations, ranging from those beyond a person’s control (like natural disaster, war, or national economic collapse) to those within a person’s control (like bad life choices) that result in people ending up poor compared to others in the region or the world who are well off. Unfortunately, some of these organizations or regions get so caught up in “eradicating poverty” that they see it in terms of playing with numbers and may, as the Cardinal says, end up eradicating people, or not caring when said people are dying off themselves.

We should focus on caring for individual humans in need, not on “eradicating poverty” so we can feel good about making the poverty rate go down a percent or not having to look at poor persons on the streetn.
 
I help out at our local Foodbank, making up food parcels, and chatting with clients, minding their children for them while they do paperwork and so on.

I do agree that often the idea of ‘eradicating poverty’ becomes a political football, rather than a work of mercy - a way to slap political opponents round the chops rather than a genuine effort to make even a single life better.

I hesitated to post because I’m really not all about advertising the charity I do, but I do think we can be distracted by big picture sloganizing and miss the simple acts of kindness that are possible for anyone to engage with.
 
RE: Eradicating poverty - On this topic, I side with the Church and Pope Francis’ actions. Pope Francis to meet with Rev. Barber to discuss fight agianst poverty - Living Faith - Home & Family - News - Catholic Online

The USCCB best phrases our approach as “two feet” of justice. One foot works for charity, which addresses urgency. The other addresses making long-term social changes. If you only “walk on one foot,” you’re out of balance.

Matthew 26:11, (“The poor you will always have with you”) is too often quoted as an out-of-context cop-out. Posting the link again: Home - Archdiocese of Cincinnati
 
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agreed. Poverty wears so many faces. Mentally ill, people living paycheck to paycheck who hit a layoff in a high unemployment rate area. They guy who did his time over some bad choices who wants a job who cant find one. On and on. We will have a better chance at taking a bite out of poverty when we get a better handle on treating mental illness and addressing its causes.
 
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