Watching Charity in Action

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She is wandering around the cavernous chapel, a diminutive figure searching for persons she knows who have difficulty hearing. She is a retired teacher of the hearing impaired, a knowledgeable source about hearing aids and their small radios for volume control which she carries with her. She is armed also with a small backpack full of accessories for the hearing-impaired. She is a mobile control center meandering in and out of rows and aisles locating persons who need the devices so they can participate in the liturgy to the fullest extent. She is a quiet thread of love moving imperceptibly, gently attaching the equipment, a mother bird bringing food to the nest. All will be fed now with spiritual nourishment; they will hear the prayers, the homily, the readings. She never seems to grow weary of her task, for liturgies, meetings, gatherings of all kinds for which most of us take for granted our gift of hearing. She is never impatient. She offers an understanding smile as she ministers. This is not a job or a task which she has assumed. It is, as she once said, a privilege. She is charity in action.

I am seated in the back of our meeting room at a table which offers a panoramic view of the whole room. I observe the sisters arriving for the meeting. It is an important meeting and many from the infirmary insist on coming rather than watching it from their rooms. They want to be in the thick of things, a mark of their retired lives as former teachers, nurses, administrators, parish leaders, etc. Reflective music lifts the atmosphere to prayer as the infirmary women are brought in by aides and other sisters. The quiet is punctuated with the clatter of wheelchairs nipping the legs of tables and chairs, of walkers thumping the floor one dreaded step after another. Respectful of the silence, no one is talking, no one is intemperate or angry or unsettled. Only the shuffling of papers and notebooks, and the pens rolling across the table are audible. There is a goal to be achieved: a place to claim at the table. The aides and sisters transporting the infirm are quietly arranging them at their tables. They smile if the sister asks something of them; they indicate the time on their watches and note the time the meeting will be starting. Some will leave their charges with a hug, some with an affectionate touch on the shoulder but they will stay within reach. They are charity in action.

I sometimes worship in the chapel of our retirement home in Northeastern Ohio. Customarily, when the Sunday liturgy is about to begin, the residents from the memory unit are brought in by a passel of caring aides and nurses who lead the residents to chairs, get them settled with handouts for participation and singing, and then retreat to the back where they can see the overall picture of the group. Predictably, one woman begins to wander at any point in the Mass. She is a pint-sized lissome woman who once carried logs for her home in Alaska. But today she wanders.  As she stands and begins to walk from her chair, her friend, another memory unit resident, walks to her, takes her arm and whispers that she must stay in her seat, so she doesn’t fall. The smaller woman smiles broadly and thanks her friend as they both settle for the prayers. The friend of our wanderer takes the hand of the smaller woman, and they smile at each other. Our wanderer has been led away from the darkness of looking for ‘something,’ from the fear of aloneness, from the anxiety of not knowing where she is. A loving hand has brought her back. Charity in action.

Reflection

Many people think of charity as giving, giving from our resources and the more we give, the more charitable we are. I suggest there are different kinds of resources. Yes, charity is donating generous amounts of money. But it is also donating time as a resource such as volunteering at a food pantry and donating personal interest in offering aid to someone. Charity can be taking a risk for someone like hiring a former felon, or a recovering alcoholic. Charity is the common everyday practices we can take for granted like pushing a wheelchair, sending cards, making phone calls. Charity has a very big arc: donations, service, personal attention, on and on. 

The unique part of charity is that when you start practicing it on most or all levels of that arc, it will become your skin and the covering of your soul. Nothing, and no one of need will escape your attention. Every response you make to any situation in life will have charity at its root. 

I encourage you to read, reflectively, Matthew 25:34-40. Pray over this reading. Ask for the grace to absorb it and make it part of your spiritual life.

For this week, notice the times you are inspired to do something simple as an act of charity. Try to make yourself more aware of a need that presents itself to you and inspires you to act. You will be acting as Jesus did and as he asked us to act. You will light a spark in your heart as you do this, and you will make someone feel loved and cared for. God bless all of you, my faithful readers and my Anonymous Angels who go through life simply loving others!!