“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Dom Helder Camara (1909 – 1999)
It would be strange if you, especially if you call yourself “Christian”, would have a friend come to your door robbed of his food money and all you did was feed him without any interest in the crime. It would equally be as strange if you were only outraged at the injustice and didn’t bother to feed him.
The problem with taking the late Brazilian bishop Camara’s quote out of context is that it is not the role of the bishop to only to do either or both. The bishop, while caring for the poor and justice, must first preach the Word that prompts effective charity and justice. In other words, if you don’t have a reason, why care about the poor or about justice?
The early Church quickly and wisely dealt with this situation: please see Acts 4:32-35 and Acts 6:1-3. The community shared physical goods but recognized that proclaiming the Word came first.
Bishop Camara, by saying what he said, was doing three things: preaching, feeding the poor and seeking justice. I have experienced firsthand “religious” communities that abandoned preaching the Word of God for a social agenda. They indeed want to both feed the poor and seek social justice – but they forgot that “the poor” are human beings, children of God, who are worthy to have the same Gospel given to them as to “the rich”. We Christians believe in the Body of Christ. We believe that only “in Christ” are we alive and fruitful in charity and justice (Acts 4). The Body has many members – some are called to mainly preach, some to mainly almsgiving and some to mainly seek justice – but all are called to share their faith, their motivation to do so, with both the poor and the rich (Acts 6). Sharing the real flesh of Jesus, the Word of God, is the first and enlivening act of love. It is the cause of our caring about our brothers and sisters.
Without love, we would have no friend at the door.
