Like many other cradle Catholics, Iâve had the Corporal Works of Mercy memorized since I was 9 years old. Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, give alms to the poor, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead.
They sounded simple enough when I was a kid â do good things, be a good person. But in a year like 2020, where everything seemed to go wrong at once, living out the Works of Mercy became complicated.
Homeless shelters were forced to turn people away in order to avoid the transmission of coronavirus between residents. An attempt to give alms to the poor â in the form of a stimulus check â was delayed by political discord. Feeding the hungry was not so easy when an economic recession meant the number of hungry people kept rising. As for burying the dead, the death toll was too great, and we could not even host proper funerals for the people we lost.
By City News Service
Jan 23, 2021
LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced today its Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries started offering contactless burial options due to state and local public health restrictions and high demand for funeral services.
“We follow our Church s teachings of the Corporal Works of Mercy which includes burial of the dead. Just as when we give water to the thirsty, food to the hungry or shelter the homeless, all of us at Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries see God s face in the families and patrons we serve, said Brian McMahon, Director of Community Outreach of the Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries.
Dionne Mitchell was born and raised Catholic, attending St. Augustine Church in North Little Rock, one of three historically Black Catholic churches in Arkansas. As a 29-year-old, she has her pick of churches in Central Arkansas, but has always sought out a predominantly Black congregation.
“I wanted to be around people that look like me,” she said. “. I didn’t feel excluded (in other parishes). I just always thought it was weird seeing white Jesus in a church.”
Walking into most churches in Arkansas, there’s no shortage of Anglo depictions of Jesus, Mary and Joseph the cross, statutes and Stations of the Cross. But for a Church that’s supposed to be universal, the concept of being welcoming can start with more diverse depictions of the Holy Family. But it runs deeper than that for local Black Catholics, rooted in cultural acceptance.
Michael Brannigan: Giving the gift of mercy is a burden - and a liberation
Michael C. Brannigan
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This season of light comes with an extraordinarily heavy burden, one that is our choice to accept or not. Amidst the gift-giving, our most difficult though precious offering remains that of mercy. As in the following disturbing parable, this is no light task.
On Oct. 2, 2006, 32 year-old Charles Roberts IV, a local milk truck driver in the rural community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, entered the one-room Amish schoolhouse and at gunpoint ordered the adults and all boys to leave. He nailed the doors shut, bound up the ten young girls, ages 6 to 13, and made a last call to his wife. Just as police arrived, he shot the girls at close range and shot himself. 5 girls died and the other 5 were critically injured.
Blessings in a bag Wednesday, December 23, 2020 10:18 AM
KALIDA Seventh-grade Confraternity of Christian Doctrine students at Kalida
St. Michael’s Catholic Church plan to give away blessings during the
next several weeks. The ‘blessings’ they will offer are not spoken words
but actual ‘blessing bags’ that provide essentials for someone.
Recently
21 students in the CCD class gathered to assemble the bags that
included a bottle of water, gloves, socks, toothpaste, shampoo, hand
warmers, Chapstick, hand sanitizer, granola bars, raisins, and other
items. The students donated the items for the bags.
Now each
student has two of the ‘blessing bags’ in their family vehicle. They