Corporal Works of Mercy

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awke

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The corporal works of mercy are as follows:
  1. To feed the hungry.
  2. To give drink to the thirsty.
  3. To clothe the naked.
  4. To harbour the harbourless
  5. To visit the sick.
  6. To visit the imprisoned
  7. To bury the dead.
What are some practical ways to live this out in our modern world today?

There are definitely safe and easy answers (such as donating money to charity, volunteering at a soup kitchen, etc.) and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m just curious to hear people’s thoughts on some other ways to perform the corporal works of mercy that may be specific to our time/society, or just some practical ways that don’t often get as much mention.

Here are a few that I’ve thought about:

-Visiting a nursing/retirement home
-Assisting with rent
-Buying health insurance for someone
-Helping with medical bills
-Cooking a meal for somebody who is sick, incapacitated, or stressed out
-Helping out with home repair or cleaning
 
I like to buy some mcdonalds gift cards in five dollar amounts and hand them to the needy who frequent street corners.
I can hand them a type of food and shake their hand and wish them Godspeed.
 
mine is all monetary to people who are doing the works. i do help take donations to the local food pantry. it’s not much, but it’s a start. i keep thinking i should ask our pastor if he needs any help around the parish. of course, visiting and helping needy friends and family. i have no idea how one would go about visiting strangers in the hospital, nursing home, jail. someone brought the eucharist to my wife and i in the hospital, and that was wonderful, a true angel.
 
Most Diocese have an office of Prison Ministry. You can do the following at the parish level:
Write letters to inmates
collect small toiletries for inmate
collect magazines for inmates
Send encouraging notes with good spiritual articles in them

At the parish level you could head up a semi-annual collection to help people who do not have funds to pay for funeral expenses, embalming, cremation, burial, and the like.

If you are an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion you can be on the list to take Eucharist to the hospital bound or the homebound. They love to have a visitor to talk to, and it serves a good purpose in that you can alert the priest to someone needing anointing.

Set up a food pantry at your parish.

Provide lunches to people living under bridges or behind shopping malls. Organize your fellow parishioners to make the lunches, and others to deliver them.

Children in trailer parks often don’t eat breakfast or lunch during the summer when they do not have access to the free lunches and this is a big problem for their folks who are away at work all day. Organize the parishioners into making lunches daily, food donated, and have others drive the sack lunches over to the trailer park.

These are all things we do in our parish.
God Bless.
 
awke said:
The corporal works of mercy are as follows:
  1. To feed the hungry.
  2. To give drink to the thirsty.
  3. To clothe the naked.
  4. To harbour the harbourless
  5. To visit the sick.
  6. To visit the imprisoned
  7. To bury the dead.
What are some practical ways to live this out in our modern world today?

There are definitely safe and easy answers (such as donating money to charity, volunteering at a soup kitchen, etc.) and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m just curious to hear people’s thoughts on some other ways to perform the corporal works of mercy that may be specific to our time/society, or just some practical ways that don’t often get as much mention.
Click to expand...
  1. To feed the hungry. Work at a soup kitchen
  2. To give drink to the thirsty. Work at a soup kitchen
  3. To clothe the naked. Give clothes to a homeless shelter
  4. To harbour the harbourless Help at a homeless shelter
  5. To visit the sick. Extraordinary minister of communion to the sick
  6. To visit the imprisoned Work in the prison ministry
  7. To bury the dead. Help with the bereavement ministry
 
awke said:
The corporal works of mercy are as follows:
  1. To feed the hungry.- ** Work and lobby to reduce federal and state distribution (welfare) programs. ** Why? Money doesn’t feed the hungry. Poverty rates haven’t changed.
Click to expand...
 
decatholic said:
awke;12500940:
The corporal works of mercy are as follows:
  1. To feed the hungry.- ** Work and lobby to reduce federal and state distribution (welfare) programs. **
Click to expand...
Why? Money doesn’t feed the hungry. Poverty rates haven’t changed.

Actually, poverty rates have skyrocketed in the last 6 years because of The State. Federal programs are notoriously counter productive.
Click to expand...
 
Greetings,
Here is something from Mother Teresa " It is easier to offer a dish of rice to meet the hunger of a hungry person than to comfort the loneliness and the anguish of someone in our own home who does not feel loved."
For whatever reasons and there are probably many we fail to see the need of our own parents, grandparents, neighbors etc. These folks don’t necessarily have to be living in our physical home. Visiting the sick and imprisoned could also mean visiting mom or dad that live alone 2 miles away or 10 miles away.
My father-in-law while he was alive was imprisoned his last few years because he had to rely on my wife and I to bring him to the store or bank etc. He could still cook for himself or so he thought but was dangerous because he didn’t pay attention to what he was making and often didn’t turn the stove top off because he forgot so my wife moved in with him to take care of him during his last 14 months. I would go spend weekends with them because she was becoming very bitter toward her siblings that didn’t help. She was feeling imprisoned. I would stay with him while she picked up groceries or went to play bingo.
My mother is imprisoned much of the winter as she is afraid to be out on the roads due to snow. Self imposed prison but prison non the less. My wife and I go down and visit with her and bring her out for breakfast or lunch etc.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t provide works of mercy for strangers but not to forget family and friends which I have seen happen with both of these experiences from my wife’s siblings and my siblings as well. I have to brothers that both consider themselves to be catholic and my in-laws (some of them) consider themselves to be Christian of one denomination or another. Many of them live or lived much closer than my wife and I to our parents. I think we tend to ignore those closest to us. Blessings and be well.
 
family first! my wife is having the same problem with her siblings. i think that’s the way of the world today. God bless!
 
Ignatius said:
decatholic;12511577:
Actually, poverty rates have skyrocketed in the last 6 years because of The State. Federal programs are notoriously counter productive.
Click to expand...
Iggy- what metric are you measuring. I do see that my claim is fairly broadsweeping. My point is government programs on poverty don’t solve poverty.

But where do we stand today? The government’s official measure of poverty shows that poverty has actually increased slightly since the Johnson administration, rising from 14.2 percent in 1967 to 15 percent in 2012. FROM MOTHER JONES
Then in the same article “new” measures of poverty “prove” the Great Society has worked.

It hasn’t.
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they are not meant to solve poverty, they are meant to keep people from starving.
 
bisco said:
they are not meant to solve poverty, they are meant to keep people from starving.
Click to expand...
Outside this original thread…

**From LBJ himself **

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

If you read the speech it is a chilling progressive turn to government not God as the main giver of life. In it he continue with:
The purpose of protecting the life of our nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people.

The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the** elimination of poverty** and of racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but differed sharply in types of programs enacted.
 
rhetoric. but even the church turned to government for their charitable work, that’s why we’re getting out of the hospital business.
 
bisco said:
rhetoric. but even the church turned to government for their charitable work, that’s why we’re getting out of the hospital business.
Click to expand...
Quote LBJ’s word and you say rhetoric. Maybe so when rhetoric means (the ability to use language effectively.)
The government(s) turned to the Church to see charity at work. The antecedent is the Church not the government.
Your but… statement makes no sense to me.
When and where is the RC church getting out of the hospital business because of government charity?
 
they sold all their boston area hospitals to a for profit corp. a couple years ago. i don’t know if it was because of contraception and abortion laws, or to help pay the victims of clergy abuse. maybe a little of both? and the same thing is happening in education. how long before most catholic universities have to get out of the business or stop taking federal tax dollars?
 
bisco said:
they sold all their boston area hospitals to a for profit corp. a couple years ago. i don’t know if it was because of contraception and abortion laws, or to help pay the victims of clergy abuse. maybe a little of both? and the same thing is happening in education. how long before most catholic universities have to get out of the business or stop taking federal tax dollars?
Click to expand...
*but even the church turned to government for their charitable work, that’s why we’re getting out of the hospital business.
*

I don’t see your linkage. If you don’t know then please don’t claim. If you do it is called speculation which is very different from fact. What is the “same thing is happening in education”…

It would be great if Catholic institutions did not take tax dollars. Georgetown isn’t very catholic.
 
Sowing into communities in need.

As an American Catholic living in China, I prayed for ways to support the needy here. The Lord led me to a tiny diocese in a remote area to support Catholic tea farmers. In addition to supporting the religious who minister to the sick and elderly in the region, we work to support farmers so their teas can reach the U.S. market.

I believe we all have gifts and talents that can be used to help communities around us. In addition to providing direct support to those we encounter in our daily lives, we can also work with the Church in efforts to build capacity for larger groups of disadvantaged as well–even if we have to start an initiative ourselves.

www.crossingstea.com
 
I look for deals while I’m shopping for donation to our St Vincent dePaul food pantry’s monthly collection. I also put the food away that we receive every month. I estimate that through couponing and sales, I purchase about $40-50/month on food and non-food for donation. I also support another food pantry affiliated with a parish that I attend a Bible group at.
 
Here’s my question:

If one is capable of providing (?) corporal works of mercy, but one does not, is that s sin?

For example, if Joe Sixpack says, “I really should help out at the parish soup kitchen,” but doesn’t bother to follow through, is that a sin? Or if Sally Housecoat says, “I’m going to pack clothes for the needy on Saturday,” but instead goes to the movies, is that a sin?
 
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