A turbulence of conscience
"Please give me one dollar for bread!" - such insistence and requests we can hear more and more on the streets from the so-called people from the margins. How do we react to such situations? Confusion, hidden indifference, coldness or instinctively throwing money into a cup? After all, contact with people on the street provokes and irritates us: walk by or stop? Or is he/she some trickster who does not want to work? Why should I give my honestly earned money to someone who does not deserve it? Don't I have my own family and my own needs? Why don't these people get down to a specific job? Admit that we feel anxious and split in ourselves This is a good sign and means we still have a sensitive conscience - because we are asking. It would be worse - if we considered the poor as an ordinary element of everyday reality.
This dilemma can become a challenge for us to come out of our narrow understanding of charity, which we have limited to giving money in order to ease our conscience. Meanwhile, look around: your family, neighbors, friends still expect your kindness. They wait when, instead of saying, "I don't have time," we begin to notice their needs and desires. We do not need to perform miracles or unusual works. Simple gestures of love are enough: a good word, forgiveness, helping the tired, a bit of a smile, improving cold relationships, talking to a child, fulfilling one's duties well, visiting the sick or lonely people and many others.
Such alms are possible for us too - if we want to become a gift to others. Being open to our loved ones and appreciating the value of ordinary deeds will also prevent people from the margins from being a living remorse for us. We will look at them not with calculation and suspicion, but with compassion, even if we do not have anything to throw into the cup ...
Christ also did not heal everyone, did not free the entire world from misery and all suffering, although He could do so. He wandered in Palestine, not all over the world. He did not heal all the evil, but he was compassionate and sympathetic. He set an example so that we too could imitate him.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george