Always With Us

The poor, that is. My parish got involved with a local food bank a year ago, just after Pope Francis' election and in response to his insistence that the Church should do more for the poor. My feeling was (and is) that the Church as an institution does and always has done a good deal for the poor; the challenge is for individuals to do more - we're a fairly prosperous congregation and not many of us are inclined to sell everything we have and give the proceeds to the poor, me included. So, we donate food weekly or as and when we can.
The parishioner who started the involvement and does a great deal of work around it addressed us last Sunday and explained that the bank's remit had widened in the last year. Originally help was given for a few weeks only to families where the wage-earner had recently lost their job and was waiting for benefits to kick in .  Now it seems, those who have had benefits sanctioned (i.e. withdrawn for a period, usually for non-compliance or misconduct) are receiving food parcels and 'repeat' clients are being helped. I found myself wondering whether, as the state benefits system is reformed to reduce the abuses  which we all know have been going on, the new systems of voluntary charitable help will find themselves being exploited by the work-shy. I also wondered if I was being uncharitable in thinking this and in my scepticism about what exactly constitutes 'poverty' nowadays. Obviously not being able to afford food qualifies, but why are people who have recently been in work unable to fund such a basic need for a few weeks? Because they waste money on unnecessary things when in work? Who am I to judge? But are we justified in handing out help to anyone who has fallen on hard times irrespective of why that is so? Is the concept of the 'deserving poor' valid? Someone recently suggested that if we give to the 'deserving' poor we are dealing in justice; it's the 'undeserving' poor who need our charity. I carry on donating on the grounds that if I don't someone who genuinely needs help may miss out.

Then today's gospel was the story of Dives (only he's never called that now)and Lazarus. It's not a parable with much to commend it to liberals. Dives is not damned for being rich,but for allowing his riches to blind him to the needs of others and refusing to share them. Lazarus attains Abraham's bosom by being literally long-suffering: he simply waits patiently in the hope of something coming his way, rather than demanding his 'rights'. Like the Canaanite woman he is content with scraps from the table and that humility and hope sanctifies him.