"Just Thoughts"--Do We All Have a Role to Play?

[Originally written for the St. Mary's (Painesville, Ohio) church bulletin]

 Does everyone have a responsibility to build a Just World? What if you are too busy, too young, too old, too sick?

Catholic Christians (and those of many other faiths) believe everyone has a responsibility and a role. For some people, the role is to try to shape policy, by way of participation in politics or agencies that make policy. And of course all adult citizens have the right (and responsibility) to vote! But not every person can shape policy, and some people are not eligible to vote.

If you are too young, say an infant and or a child, your role is to be that very baby or child. Learn to understand the world, learn about love from your parents and family. 

If you are a busy young parent, your role in bringing about the Just Kingdom is to raise healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. You will teach them love, justice, and service. You will teach both by your words and your example.

If you are too old or too sick for active work, pray for the world. Remember that every time we pray the Our Father we are asking for the Lord's Kingdom to be established and we are asking for forgiveness, for ourselves, and for our enemies. That is a huge contribution to building the Beloved Community. 

If you have been blessed with time and energy, you can do what some of your St. Mary parishioners and friends do: chop onions and carrots (or do a dozen other jobs) for St. Mary's Wednesday and Thursday night meal for the homeless and hungry; go to daily mass and pray for the world (and then maybe serve food and beverages at St. Mary's meal); take communion and comfort to the sick and homebound; staff St. Mary’s food pantry for the hungry; visit prisoners in the county jail (several of your fellow parishioners do that); play liturgical music and prepare luncheons for the grieving at funerals--your neighbors do that; help immigrants adjust to life in America--that's a central ministry of St. Mary's. There is so much to do--and so few workers in the vineyard.

You build justice by living out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy (see Matthew 25:34-40), central elements of Christianity, and a particular focus of Catholicism. These are right there in the Gospels, and part of the mission of our own parish. Everyone has a role; it can be very modest, but that doesn't matter. 

Get out there and do something!

[The above essay was written for a particular church (and its ministries). But I think these ideas can be generalized far beyond St. Mary's! I myself am so honored to be an active participant in some of these ministries.]

Below is part of Wikipedia's entry on "Works of Mercy":

The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy

Corporal Works of Mercy are those that tend to bodily needs of others. In Matthew 25:34-40, in the The Judgment of Nations, six specific Works of Mercy are enumerated, although not this precise list — as the reason for the salvation of the saved, and the omission of them as the reason for damnation. The last work of mercy, burying the dead, comes from the Book of Tobit.

1. To feed the hungry.
2. To give drink to the thirsty.
3. To clothe the naked.
4. To harbour the harbourless. (also loosely interpreted today as To Shelter the Homeless)
5. To visit the sick.
6. To visit the imprisoned (classical term is "To ransom the captive")
7. To bury the dead.

The Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy

Just as the Corporal Works of Mercy are directed towards relieving corporeal suffering, the even more important aim of the Spiritual Works of Mercy is to relieve spiritual suffering. The latter works are traditionally enumerated thus:

1. To instruct the ignorant.
2. To counsel the doubtful.
3. To admonish sinners.
4. To bear wrongs patiently.
5. To forgive offences willingly.
6. To comfort the afflicted.
7. To pray for the living and the dead.

Community Wrapped in Community Wrapped in Community

I wonder if Robin Williams, for one night about a week ago, felt completely alone, completely abandoned, as when Jesus on the cross "shouted in a loud voice, saying 'Eli Eli lama sabachthani?' which is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" We cannot know this for sure. We can not even know for sure things right in front of our face.

One thing I do know, as well as a human being is able, is that I am loved and enveloped in many communities, almost swaddled in love as a newborn baby. My first community was my family, initially my mother, father, and grandparents, Cora and Connie Coughlin. And I had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. I joke that we didn't have friends growing up--we had family, relatives. This family expanded as Denny, Mary Ellen, Kevin, and Jim were born. And it keeps expanding!

Family is still very central to me, now with Linda, Julia, Carolan, and Emily, and my two sons-in-law, Ed and Brian, and my grandchildren, Colin and Robby. We have a  big family, and it still is the bedrock of my security.

I have several other families, and these have been more "dynamic" over the years, with people flowing in and out. One of the first important ones for me was my Notre Dame classmates, especially the 35 other guys I studied abroad with in 1967-68 (in Salzburg and Innsbruck, Austria). Many of these fellows remain very close friends, with some others a bit more distant.

Another fantastic warm and loving community -- the peace activists I met when I moved to Cincinnati from Euclid in the winter of 1971. These people were Peacemakers, Catholic Workers, Quakers, and other like-minded living in and around Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. Some were around my age, give or take, like Chris Cotter, Kenny Przybylski, Chuck Matthei, Jack Shereda, Peggy Scherer, Anne and Clare Weinkam, Greg Haas, Joan Levy, Bonnie Tompkins, Henry Scott, Andy Meyer, Joel Stevens, Dick Crowley, Richard Gale, John Luginbill (and others), and some were "elders" like Ernest and Marion Bromley, Maurice McCrackin (Mac), Bill Wahler--and several more. Some of my Peacemaker friends have died--Chuck Matthei, Ernest, Marion, Mac, Kenny, Jack, Bill. But I remain close friends with many, despite living far away from them.

Another layer of community consists of my colleagues at Lakeland Community College. Many of these are professors and fellow members of our union, the Lakeland Faculty Association. But there are also plenty of staffers, administrators, and part-timers that I consider part of my work community.

And then there is one of the most wonderful, sustaining communities I belong to, at my church, St. Mary's in Painesville, Ohio, especially the people I work with in the Karpos Ministry to feed the hungry and homeless--Linda, Kathy and Dan Philipps, Pam, Judy, Ken Fitzsimmons, Chuck Hillier, Jim, Bernice, Karen, Jeff, Kathy Flora, and many others. We have found a common focus for our interests in social justice and we have found a common and important task. It is almost exhilarating to work together with these folks every week. This is a model of the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King and Maurice McCrackin spoke of!

There are other communities I prize--my Irish-Gaelic classmates, my Irish traditional music friends, and many others.

These communities sustain me, and I hope I that I can do a small part to sustain, nourish, and love my friends in these communities. Let them never, not for an hour, feel unloved and unappreciated. This is my prayer.