The extraordinarily powerful teaching about hospitality in Scripture and Tradition was lost for centuries. I do not understand clearly how that happened, but I think that large part of the problem was that the teaching was obscured by the well-meaning but confused teaching tool called the "corporal works of mercy." I explained what I think happened in Knocking at Haven's Door.
The claim sounds extreme, so I've been looking at the whole teaching, including the "spiritual works of mercy." And I think that the list of "spiritual works" is even worse.
The seven spiritual works of mercy are:
1.
To instruct the ignorant
2.
To counsel the doubtful
3.
To admonish the sinner
4.
To bear wrongs patiently
5.
To forgive offenses willingly
6.
To comfort the afflicted
7.
To pray for the living and the dead
Some of these can be good things to do, generally, maybe. However …
The list of corporal works includes the words of Jesus,
edited and improved, with an addition. I find it hard to imagine what went
through the head of the person who devised that list. Jesus said this and that,
but I can make it better? He said it carefully, four times, but I can do
better? I find it even harder to imagine what went through the head of the person
who decided that we needed a completely new and improved list for the spiritual
athletes. There are the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, then the edited and
improved list of corporal works, and then the macho list of spiritual works.
This is very strange.
It seems to me that when you unpack the words of the Lord,
it turns out that he had some ideas about spirituality. So how do his ideas
compare with the macho list?
#1: “to instruct the ignorant.” I think Jesus addressed
this, and I prefer his approach. He said, “Feed the hungry,” including the people
who came out into the desert to listen to him. That’s a more respectful
approach: give people what they want and need when they want and need it (if
you have it), and not before. If you think of people as ignorant, and try to
stuff your ideas down their throats, that’s disrespectful, and ineffective.
Jesus named the people he addressed better: hungry, not stupid. He had a better
tone: respect, not condescension. And he has a larger and clearer verb: feed,
not instruct. I’m not sure we need this spiritual work #1.
#2: “counsel the doubtful.” Why would you do that? What’s
wrong with doubts? Jesus didn’t denounce Thomas for his doubts; he provided
convincing data. He said firmly and clearly that it’s good if you have an
approach – a habit of trust, perhaps – that gets to the truth without a lot of
doubts: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” But Jesus didn’t
curse or even criticize Thomas. And millions of people since that time have been
grateful for Thomas’s question and Jesus’s response, both. Doubts have their
place! The habit of doubt is fundamental in science. Skepticism is healthy,
like pruning shears.
To be sure, there are times when people wrestles with doubts
and want help figuring things out. But it’s the “… and want help” part that
requires a pastoral response, that elicits the thoughts of an experienced and
knowledgeable teacher. But I emphasize: this is not a response to doubt; it’s a
response to a request.
To be sure, there are critics who want to argue and attack, deliberately
stirring doubts. But if someone wants a debate, then debate! Counseling a
debater is condescending and counter-productive.
#3: “admonish the sinner.” This one seems so wrong to me, in
so many ways! First, in my life, “the” sinner is me. I’m pretty sure there are
other sinners in my life, but the one who matters most to me, the only one who
can be “the” sinner in my life, the one whose sins impinge on my life, is
unquestionably me. I gotta repent; I gotta listen more carefully to the Lord
who heals; I gotta learn to love others more completely. I learned from my childhood,
from my brilliant and patient father, that a daily examination of conscience is
a good idea. His way was patient and humble and honest, in tranquil prayer.
There wasn’t anything like finger-wagging in it.
Parents are responsible for raising their children, and sometimes
that includes direct confrontation over things a child has done wrong. But it’s
odd to think of correcting a child as “admonishing a sinner.”
It matters to confront injustice, to speak truth to power,
to denounce evil. But even when you address someone involved in evil directly,
it seems to me that it’s better to try to separate the evil from the person, as
well as possible, and to criticize the wrong-doing, not the wrong-doer. I’m not
good at that, but I try; and when I realize that I have once again attacked
someone personally because I was focused on the “sinner,” I judge that to be a
failure on my part.
It seems to me that the Lord’s response to sinners is
intelligent and complex and multi-faceted and creative. And it seems to me that
he addressed this in three of his six precepts. He said we should clothe the
naked, which includes asserting and protecting the dignity of people who are
subject to criticism. Dealing with the woman at the well, he did get around to
talking to her about sexual promiscuity. We don’t have a record of that part of
the conversation, but we do see her reaction. She danced off, proclaiming loudly
that everyone should come listen to this guy. I don’t know what he said, but I
do know he didn’t shame her; he clothed her in his dignity. He said we should
visit the sick and the weak; I take that to include people who can’t find the
moral strength within themselves to stay out of trouble. And I take the word “visit”
to be a word of immense power: be with them, with joy, like the dawning
breaking upon us. Be a friend; be a joy; be a strength. And he said to visit
the imprisoned. I take that to include visiting people who are not just in
trouble, but who are trapped in evil. That includes, for example, people who
have been raised in privilege and are almost incapable of imagining a just
world. This attitude toward sin includes an approach to social evils. John Paul
II taught that the route to freedom from massive social evils is solidarity
with the victims of that evil: that is, in my view, a modern formulation of
what Jesus said about visiting the imprisoned.
So what about this “admonish” thing? I think it’s a horrible
habit, deliberately inculcated. It’s condescending, embodying the worst of
clericalism. Some people believe that they are supposed to poke their noses in
other people’s lives – deliberately, uninvited – in order to be “faithful to
the truth.” I don’t think this is a work of mercy; I think it’s arrogance.
#4: “bear wrongs patiently” and #5: “forgive offenses willingly.”
Good ideas! I have no argument with them. But I note that they can be found in
the Lord’s third precept, as Thomas Aquinas described it. The Lord’s third
precept is to welcome strangers – an attitude that Abraham displayed at the
First Feast at Mamre, and that Jesus displayed at the Last Supper. Aquinas was
eloquent about a detail from the Last Supper, Jesus washing the disciples’
feet. In Aquinas’s understanding, this detail of hospitality is also a gesture
of forgiveness – and it is mandatory. Jesus, says Thomas, commanded his
followers to wash each other’s feet – not necessarily literally, although he thought
that would be a good idea when possible. But to forgive from the heart: that,
he said, was the point of the gesture.
But wait, you think. Did Jesus welcome “strangers” at the
Last Supper? Emphatically yes, and far more. He welcomed Judas, who was about
as alienated as a person can be. He was planning treachery that night; that’s
deep alienation. Knowing that, Jesus welcomed him, and even advised him. Jesus
knew what Judas and Peter were going to do, and made clear to them both that he
understood them better than thy understood themselves, and he offered them faithful
love. Jesus did not welcome someone he didn’t know, who might be a threat; he
embraced someone he knew to be alienated, and knew to be a grave danger.
I have no argument with #4 and #5, but I think the Lord’s
command to be hospitable, especially to strangers, includes them.
#6: “comfort the afflicted.” No argument. I think it’s a
catch-all that refers to everything that the Lord said in his six precepts. I prefer
the Lord’s clarity, but won’t argue with a quick encapsulation.
#7: “pray for the living and the dead.” This isn’t a bad
idea; intercessory prayer is always a good idea. Do it. But this formulation is
an incomplete thought, an unfinished draft, a work in progress.
This used to be “pray for the dead.” Some Christians insist
that the dead are beyond any need of prayer; they are done, and have gone on to
their eternal destiny. Catholics disagree with that. We pray from people who
have died, and also ask people who have died to pray for us. We consider death
a change, not an end.
Then this item was edited: of course we should pray for the
living too! Of course; great idea. But while we’re at it, praying for those in
the past and the present, shouldn’t we pray for those to come as well? The
whole environmental movement has an eye on our descendants, who have a right to
live in a well-tended world. If pagans are thinking about those to come,
shouldn’t we?
So in my view, this last item is fine as far as it goes, but
it’s half-baked.
The worst aspect of the list of seven “spiritual works of
mercy” is that it reinforces the idea that the corporal works of mercy –
including the Lord’s six precepts – are corporal and not spiritual. The Lord’s teaching is always multi-faceted,
moving easily from one level of reality to another, from literal (corporal) to
metaphorical to emotional to intellectual to social to anagogical. If we
explore what he said, each item in his list of six is extraordinary, explosive –
and spiritual. The list of spiritual works can get in the way of exploring the
Lord’s own teaching, substituting a confused mishmash. That’s destructive.
Each of the Lord’s six precepts are meaningful on many
levels, and calling them “corporal” can cut off any meditation on other levels.
It’s a loss, for example, when the command to feed the hungry is heard as a
command about bread – and not about reading Scripture, not about building a
community, not about the Eucharist, not about a heavenly and eternal feast. Calling
them “corporal” truncates thought, for no good reason.
Further, it seems to me that four of the Lord’s six precepts
are not literal and corporal when you first bump into them. That is, the
literal and corporal service is included, but it’s secondary. The first two,
about feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, start with the
physical level and then build rapidly on that. But it seems to me that the
third, welcoming strangers, begins with an attitude of hospitality – and then specific
concrete acts flow from that. And the fourth, clothing the naked, is about
protecting dignity first; doing something with clothes is almost irrelevant.
The corporal level does matter, but it’s not the first meaning, nor even the second
or third meaning. As to the fifth and sixth corporal works, it seems to me that
they are primarily about reacting to sin as a weakness and sin as a trap. For
sure, the corporal level matters, but it’s not the primary meaning. So when you
discourage a multi-faceted approach to the Lord’s six precepts by listing
corporal works and spiritual works separately, you don’t just truncate Lord’s
words for all six; you also distort four of the six. Yes, clothing the naked
includes a corporal service – but it’s secondary, and neglecting the demand to
protect dignity distorts the teaching.
I think the list of spiritual works of mercy should be set
aside. I think we should return to the original powerful text, the Lord’s own
words in Matthew’s Gospel.
