“And as the years went by and the Church spread further afield, the exercise of charity became established as one of her essential activities, along with the administration of the sacraments and the proclamation of the word: love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to her as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel.”
God is Love, par. 22, Benedict XVI      

Catholic tradition, it seems, loved to make lists of things. Thus we see seven sacraments, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven deadly sins, seven corporal works of mercy, seven spiritual works of mercy, seven last words, and so on. 

Listing, however, meant not just a love of enumeration. Seven is traditionally the “perfect” or complete number, and lists of seven are a way of affirming that in particular areas, all the essentials -- whether of sacraments or sets of qualities -- are there.  

Very often the list has an immediate Biblical reference, as in the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:1-3), or Jesus’ seven last words (from the cross). Regarding the corporal works of mercy, in Matthew’s Last Judgment discourse, Jesus noted the things the just did to him and to “the least of the brethren,” which the unjust neglected to do; and they number six: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and visiting those in prison. Burying the dead was added to complete the list because of its special mention in the Book of Tobit (1: 17-19).

Such is the background of our subject, the seven corporal works of mercy. As Pope Benedict wrote in God is Love, his first encyclical, they describe an essential compass of the Church’s ministry, on par with the sacraments and the preaching of the Gospel.

Every three seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies of malnutrition. Almost 1.5 billion people live on less than US$1.00 per day, and 2/3 of the world live below the poverty line.

This is just a snapshot image of the reality of world hunger. Our relative affluence in Trinidad and Tobago shields us from this reality, something countless people face in other parts of the world every day.

Food is the most basic of human needs. It is no accident that the Bible underscores hunger as something God cares specially about. Yahweh thus provides the Israelites with manna in the wilderness.

“Give them something to eat,” Jesus tells his disciples, feeling compassion for the crowds. He then multiplies loaves and fishes. Finally, he gives himself as food and drink.

Hunger, as Jesus also knew, has a wider range than a need for what materially satisfies. It includes a desire for all that fundamentally nourishes and sustains. Not just for bread, therefore, but for living bread, for all that makes and keeps human life truly human.

In his famous encyclical of 1967, Populorum Progressio (On the Progress of Peoples), Pope Paul VI, observed that human hunger and human fulfilment imply (in tandem) a certain hierarchy.

 The conditions of life that promote human well being move upwards from basic to more basic, from fundamental to more fundamental still. As one hunger is satisfied, another broader and deeper hunger surfaces.

“These,” says the Pope, “are more human conditions: the passage from poverty to the possession of necessities, victory over social scourges, the growth of knowledge, the acquisition of culture.

Additional conditions that are more human are: increased esteem for the dignity of others, the turning toward the spirit of poverty, cooperation for the common good, the will and desire for peace. Conditions that are still more human are: the acknowledgment by man of supreme values, and of God their source and their finality.

Conditions that, finally and above all, are still more human: faith, a gift of God accepted by the good will of man, and unity in the charity of Christ, Who calls us all to share as sons and daughters in the life of the living God, the Father of all (par. 21).”

It’s interesting to note that as the hierarchy moves upward, it includes values we would normally put in the spiritual column, the spirit of poverty, for example, a commitment to peace, and faith itself. The Pope’s vision of the human is thus one where moral and spiritual values define and complete the ideal of human well being.

Pope Paul was a fervent advocate of Christian humanism, and we see here in a single paragraph the range of what he meant by the term. This is not humanism closed in on itself and glorying in its own immanent possibilities, but one where the human realises itself only as it opens out to the transcendent realm of the moral and the spiritual.

Human beings are therefore to be regarded as “developed”, or more accurately, on the way to development only as they have access to a range of goods broader than the material. 

It’s usual these days to add here the possession of civil and human rights, as giving the notion of development more body and substance. Even so, human beings need more. Necessities plus rights may suffice as essentials in a political programme, but the combination falls short of what it is needed for genuine fulfilment of our human potential.

“Feeding the hungry” thus entails a wide, expansive agenda. It means not only the provision of material necessities, but also access to life-enhancing possibilities, to all that nourishes and refines us as human beings, in a word, all that makes us grow and expand.

It’s clear why Pope Benedict would see commitment to the works of love on a par with the sacraments and the preaching of the Word. All three interdependently contribute to genuine human fulfilment.

Take any one away and you see immediately the extent of the diminishment. A lot of great value remains, but something essential and conducive to overall Christian integrity is gone.