For many of us, serving the poor and suffering is not something that comes naturally. We may want to be loving and charitable, but our natural inclinations betray our intentions.
As an example, we may see a poor person on the street and either try to shield ourselves from them, trying to ignore their presence, or we may reluctantly dig into our pockets and quickly throw some money into the poor person's cup.
Another example would be when a family member or friend is suffering from an illness and instead of visiting them, we actively avoid them, or if we do visit them, we fail to be an attentive presence. In such a situation, we want to avoid anything that could be awkward and are only visiting them because our conscience tells us we should.
Whatever the case may be, the goal of the Christian life is to be merciful to others with a joyful heart.
Serving Christ
St. Gregory of Nazianzen comments on this spiritual topic in a sermon the Church uses in the Office of Readings:
Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into your house, with a joyful and eager heart. He who does acts of mercy should do so with cheerfulness. The grace of a good deed is doubled when it is done with promptness and speed. What is given with a bad grace or against one’s will is distasteful and far from praiseworthy.
While its important to serve the poor and give money to them, if we do it with the wrong intentions, or do so with a gloomy disposition, we could end up creating more harm than good.
We should strive, as much as we can, to be joyful in performing acts of mercy, as St. Gregory continues:
When we perform an act of kindness we should rejoice and not be sad about it. If you undo the shackles and the thongs, says Isaiah, that is, if you do away with miserliness and counting the cost, with hesitation and grumbling, what will be the result? Something great and wonderful! What a marvelous reward there will be: Your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will rise up quickly. Who would not aspire to light and healing.
Lent is a good time to step back and examine how we are kind to others and if we do so in joy, or if we are holding something back.
We need to remember that we are serving Christ in the poor and suffering, and so how we approach them is ultimately how we would approach Jesus Christ.
If we saw Jesus walking up to us, wouldn't we be overflowing with joy? This is exactly how the saints saw the poor. They saw in them Jesus.
