Meditations for Layfolk - Alms-Deeds

The necessity of alms-deeds has continuously been insisted on by the Church. She has always regarded it as correlative to her teaching on the need for private property; for without it as an essential condition of possession, greed, pleasure, and selfishness would dominate the world. Hence the necessity for giving alms corrects the natural exclusive right to hold what is one's own. In the older state of civilization, when possessions were the common holding of the tribe, this instinctive demand for almsgiving was expressed in the action of hospitality. The tribe held the territory on which it settled; but it recognized that if anyone came to it in want, it was bound by the natural obligations of its holding to allow him what was needful to him. Even in the feudal organization of society this right to hospitality was definitely and formally recognized: but when the common ownership theory broke down and the modern absolute ownership of the individual took its place, the need for almsgiving was correspondingly taken off from the shoulders of the community and placed upon the individual. He has become very much more obliged to provide for those that are in need. The basis is very clear, for we are commanded to love one another, and this love of the brotherhood would be vain were it not to include the succouring of those that are in want. But to succour those that are in want means to give alms to them; thus from the very essential tenet of our faith comes the stern obligation of almsgiving. This obligation, as will be made clear in a sentence or two, may be either of charity or of justice.

Yet just because this is a virtuous act, commanded by the moral law, it is obvious that it must be done according to the dictates of prudence and reason. Hence we are not ordered to give all we have to everyone who comes to us and asks our help. We have to exercise our judgement, and not give to those whose need is little what is required more terribly by those whose need is very great. In point of fact, there are two conditions laid down, one on the part of the receiver and one on the part of the giver. He to whom we give must be in want: that is to say, no one has a right to appeal to his fellow-Christians for aid unless it is really a necessity to him, and then only just so long as his necessity lasts. Even a charitable institution has no business to go on soliciting help when really it has no real need of help. It is taking from others whose need is the greater. It follows also that the degree of the need itself, extreme, grave, or slight, must to a certain extent justify the actual demands put forward. Then on the part of the giver it is required that he should give out of his superfluities. He cannot morally give away what is requisite for the support of his own family, for he has contracted obligations to them, and their claim upon his individual fortune is the chief claim of all. His money, time, energy, are due first and foremost to him and his. So, again, there is the matter of his creditors. These, too, have quite definite rights over his goods, and he cannot alienate what is their due. It is clear, therefore, that I must exercise prudence in my almsgiving.

Let me then turn my thoughts to that great doctrine of Christ, that love of the brotherhood which is the final test by which men can tell whether or no they be His disciples. How far do the needs of my brethren appeal to me? how far do I realize my obligations to men as part of the great and sacred family of Christ? We are all members of one body, all parts of the sacred and mystical body of which He is the head. My own superfluities, whatever is over and above my own needs and the proper decency of my life, I can really no longer consider as my own at all: they are the common property of all my fellows. I listen to the Gospel of Christ: His denunciation of those rich fools who are " not rich towards God," His straight sayings about the extreme difficulty that the wealthy have of entering Heaven in that lively comparison of the camel and the needle's eye, most of all to the fine eloquence of His own perfect life, which though not one of actual destitution was certainly one of poverty. Then, in contrast with all that, I cannot help noticing my own comforts and the ease in which I, like so many other Christians, live. Can I suppose that mine is at all the life He would have wished His followers to lead? Let me put aside all sentiment and all explanations that do nothing else than merely explain away. Our Lord evidently taught that His fellowship meant self-denial; but He nowhere says that it meant also necessarily destitution. But that problem must be largely individual: for if I find myself in the midst of a population that is poor and foodless, cold, pinched, and badly housed, it is my absolute obligation to help them to the best of my power. To see myself as God sees me I must contrast my pleasures with my neighbour's needs.

- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.