Saturday, March 8
Today’s first reading sets high standards for God’s people. Remove oppression. Do not falsely accuse. Do not speak maliciously. Bestow your bread on the hungry. Satisfy the afflicted.
Over the past few months, I have felt really discouraged. There is so much oppression in the world, so many people suffering and starving, so much destruction that I don’t know where to begin. It can be easy to become indecisive about where to volunteer your time or donate your money when the list of prayer requests keeps getting longer and longer.
If you’re also struggling with almsgiving this Lent, maybe the best place to start is where you are right now.
Levi the tax collector (aka Matthew the Apostle) in today’s Gospel gives us a great example. He didn’t choose to follow Jesus and then immediately leave for some far-off region to go tell the world about Him. He didn’t even immediately sit down to write the Gospel that would bear his name. Instead, he used his massive wealth to host a banquet for Jesus. The guest list was not made up of the religious elite of the day, but of local “tax collectors and sinners.”
This Lent, I’m challenging myself to give of my time and my presence, not just my money. There’s nothing wrong with giving financially, especially if you have the means or are in a busy season of life that doesn’t leave you with a lot of free time. However, I have often used financial donations as a shield against engaging with the suffering of the world, like if I just throw money at the problem, it will go away, or at least allow me to tick off a box on my “Good Catholic Girl” to-do list.
But Jesus didn’t throw money at the problem. Jesus entered into our humanity, taking on our human weakness—all of it. Jesus didn’t run away from the problems of the people He ministered to. He reached out His hands and did the messy, unglamorous work of healing and counseling and feeding and teaching. His perfect charity certainly didn’t look like the performative charity of the Pharisees (Matthew 6:2), but it was the truest form of charity that we should all strive to model.
There are hungry, naked, orphaned, widowed, sick, and suffering people in your community who desperately need Jesus’s love and mercy this Lent. Will you give it to them? Whom shall He send?
May we say with the prophets of old, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”
Vicky Wolak Freeman is a writer and copy editor based in Atlanta and the communications manager of the Catholic Artist Connection.
You can find out more about her here.