Food for Thought

Jan 29, 2016

The Bible's Letter of James asks important and difficult questions: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?" (Jas 2:14-16).

In an August 2015 radio interview about the corporal works of mercy, Msgr. John Kennedy, an official at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addressed the basic need of clothing. We need clothing to protect ourselves, to keep warm. We need clothing when we outgrow what we have, or even when we wear out our clothes while working.

When we provide some of these basic necessities to one who needs it, we realize the "important and necessary connection between the words that we profess and the practical actions that we do," Msgr. Kennedy said.

It is Jesus, not just "our neighbors and our friends and our local priest" telling us of these commandments, but "they're actually commanded by God so as to allow us to put our faith into action," he said.

"These works of mercy, corporal works of mercy, are to be used for us as a clear measuring stick of our love for one another," he said.