July 29, 2009

A universal call to charity

By Johathan Reyes

The following is the first reflection in a three-part series on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, “Love in Truth” (“Caritas in Veritate”). It is by Jonathan Reyes, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver.

There has been no shortage of commentaries on the Holy Father’s latest encyclical, “Love in Truth.”  The general tendency has been to address the political and social implications of the encyclical both for global politics and the Church in the United States.  These are laudable and important conversations, but they run the risk of missing the fundamental challenge of the letter. 

This encyclical is a call to every Christian to dedicate their lives to charitable works in the service of the common good. 

Such a life, the Holy Father tells us, requires a commitment to serve the Truth in word and action in an integrated consideration of the human person and the good of the human family.   Part of what makes this call so radical is that it leaves nothing out.  Choosing to reduce charity to one or two favorite issues, is, according to the encyclical, a failure in charity and justice.  Pope Benedict has restated with great breadth of vision the universal call to charity.  It is universal in two senses: first, no one is exempt from this call, and second it must include a concern for all that makes human life good, both on earth and in heaven. 

“To love someone,” Pope Benedict writes, “is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it. … Every Christian is called to practice this charity” (7).  Every one of us must take concrete steps to secure the good of our neighbors.  This of course means doing more than feeling a certain way or giving money; it means giving of our time as well.  We must personally, in some tangible way, be caring for others. 

The Catholic tradition has always understood charity as a gift not primarily to those receiving care, but a gift for those who give it.  This is the deeper meaning of Matthew 25, where Christ tells us that whatever we do for our neighbor we are doing for him, and whatever we fail to do for our neighbor we fail to do for him.  To serve Christ in the “distressing disguises” he often wears (as Mother Teresa would put it) is a privilege and a gift to us because we are serving Christ himself.
The hidden secret of the works of mercy is, to cite the phrase of Dorothy Day’s mentor, “that the volunteer is the object of reform rather than the poor.”   In serving others we are changed. 

Thus it is not enough for us to serve others in order to simply satisfy an egoistic desire to feel good about ourselves.  Nor do we hear Christ congratulate those in the Gospel who occasionally perform an act of kindness on a holiday or drop a few more dollars in the collection basket.  If service in love is really to transform us, it requires a total self-giving for the good of the other.  For the true servants of others there is no self-satisfaction in their service.  They always desire to do more, and they naturally abhor recognition for the service they give.  All Christians, when confronting the needs of their brothers and sisters, are faced with an opportunity to be transformed ever more into the image of Christ and so transform the world in love, or not. Every opportunity to serve others is an invitation to be transformed into the person God has made us to be, and to live a life of genuine, enduring joy and happiness.

In my short tenure at Catholic Charities I have had the privilege of speaking with scores of people who have dedicated 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives to the service of those need, whether in the areas of child care, foster care, youth services, homeless shelters, home visitations, health services, the provision of food and clothing, adoption, or pregnancy counseling.  I have also spent many years with people who have devoted themselves to evangelization and education.  Many of the people who have served the longest give the same reason: they are deeply grateful for all that they have received and want to give back.  At the heart of the desire to serve, I believe, is the realization that we have been given something: that we have first been loved and that our love of others is a response.  As the Holy Father writes, “Charity is love received and given” (5).  For the Christian this love received has a face, Jesus Christ, and it is his love which in the words of St. Paul, “impels us”. 

This means that those of us who find ourselves challenged in the obligation to secure the needs of our brothers and sisters may in fact be challenged in our ability to receive the love of God.  To be loved is to give love, and to receive love first requires an openness to the love of Christ.  Thus the universal call to charity is rooted in our reception of the universal offering of God’s love to us.