Clothe the Naked
Giving Mercy by Dr. Allen Hunt
This post is one in a series on the Works of Mercy. Released on Mondays, each essay is a short reflection on one Work and one chapter of Dynamic Catholic’s book Beautiful Mercy. Read more about the series here.
Dr. Allen Hunt starts off his essay “Giving Mercy” with an urgent reminder: “In the corporal works of mercy, Jesus calls us to do something – not simply to talk about it, not to study it, not to establish a committee to develop a plan for it, but to do it.” His essay expounds specifically on the command to clothe the naked by listing three different, heroic examples of people actually doing it: Americans who left Africa barefoot after giving their shoes to villagers; a group of Catholic women who knit handmade caps for patients in chemotherapy; a family who spends the day after Christmas collecting all of the clothing they haven’t worn the previous year to give to the poor. These are people who are doing. They are in the trenches, physically, actively clothing the naked for Christ.
In college, I was trained to read, analyze, write, and conclude. In graduate school, I was trained to identify needs, write objectives, create assessments, and manage results. My brain works really well consuming data, making sense of it, and planning what to do with. Bureaucrats, politicians, business managers, and computers can also do this. But though Christ does speak to many of us through truth in words, he does not want only our minds. He also wants our bodies, souls, and hearts. And we must use all of them in service to him, by doing.
Pope Francis recently reminded us of this too in his encyclical Dilexit nos, urging us to build Christ’s kingdom through a devotion to His Sacred Heart, His divine and human heart. He says, “the heart of Christ also frees us from another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes. The result is often a Christianity stripped of the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervour of personal commitment to mission, the beauty of knowing Christ and the profound gratitude born of the friendship he offers and the ultimate meaning he gives to our lives.” We can’t just think. We must do. We must love.
This past Thanksgiving, we were visiting family in Ohio, and my four- and five-year-old nephews wanted to go outside to help their Papaw with a job. Trouble was, it was fifteen degrees with a windchill of three, and my nephews are from Virginia. They had no idea what Ohio cold feels like, and walked downstairs “ready to go” in pajama pants and sweatshirts. It took about twenty minutes, but another aunt and I got them dressed for single-digit temperatures. It required stuffing arms through sleeves, flipping upside-down socks, layering on pants, and convincing someone to wear his cousin’s huge pink unicorn gloves because they were the only pair we had left. It was not a task we meditated on beforehand; it was not something we strategized about; we had some kids who needed clothing, and so we clothed them.
When we approach our days through the lens of Works of Mercy, we suddenly realize how many works God gives us the opportunity to complete right in front of us. Though they can be, most of these opportunities are not glamourous, cerebral, or dramatic. Sometimes a kid just needs help zipping up a coat or tying his shoes. As Dr. Hunt and the Holy Father remind us, let us not get so caught up in the planning of massive, difficult feats that we forget to greet these opportunities with loving action. Let us help each other to do.