Keeping body and soul together

       The corporal (from ‘corpus’, meaning “body”) works of mercy might be summarised as seeing to it that the basic essentials are provided for. The catechism lists them as follows: feeding the hungry; sheltering the homeless; clothing the naked; visiting the sick and imprisoned; and burying the dead. Each of these are in the news with a striking modern relevance. Price hikes in food, with essentials like  bread, milk, meat hard hit, and the striking out of the Groceries Order making little impact. Rising interest rates for mortgage repayments, and the spiralling costs of renting. The use of brand names and labels to explain high cost clothing. Crises in both the health and prison systems due to overcrowding. And if the cost of living doesn’t get us into debt, the cost of dying probably will!

It is worth noting that the call to believers to practise the corporal works of mercy is to be found in the section dealing with the seventh commandment, “you shall not steal”. In today’s Gospel Jesus warns those who “swallow the property of widows” while making a show of goodness and purporting to be pillars of society. Surely there is something wrong in a booming economy where the basic essentials of life are over priced? The seventh commandment is as pertinent to the corporate practice of daylight robbery as to any other form.  Generosity like that of the widows in the readings is admirable and reminds us of so much voluntary generosity as shown by individuals and voluntary groups. Generosity is also, however, a basic Christian and human requirement of those with the power and responsibility to regulate the prices of what are after all the basic essentials.  The corporal works of mercy, providing for the basic essentials, are public as well as personal duties:  “It is the Lord who loves the just.”

Fr. Eamon Devlin, C.M.