Christmas is here. Once again, seduced far more by the call of consumerism than by Christmas bells, we will talk of gifts and scramble to buy them—many or few, expensive or cheap.
But NO, this year let's give something different: let's give at Christmas and throughout the year our time, some of our time and our talents to people in need, to organizations and groups working freely to help other human beings in every conceivable way and in the most desperate places. And if we are already committed but tired, disillusioned, on the verge of giving up, let us resist that despair with all our strength. Let us renew our resolve to act, despite the weariness or disappointment that sometimes weighs so heavy.
In these difficult times, as suffering and crisis multiply across the world, it becomes ever clearer that governments alone cannot meet these needs. The problems are too complex, the resources too scarce, the obstacles too many. More than ever, we depend on volunteers. More than ever, we must see this work not as charity, but as a debt we owe humanity—as a civic duty, as a moral obligation.
Don Vito was reflecting on the Gospel of Luke some weeks ago (Lc 16, 19–31), speaking of the rich man Dives. "At first," he said, "Dives does not seem evil enough to deserve eternal torment. After all, he did not cause Lazarus's misery. Lazarus lies abandoned at his gate, covered with sores, and Dives simply does not notice. Perhaps that rich man rarely left his house. Perhaps, always surrounded by his guards, he never saw who crowded the street as he passed. Perhaps he was distracted. Perhaps he was always in a hurry, pulled in a thousand directions. He never directly harmed the poor man. And yet Jesus tells us: Dives will end in eternal flames. He will cry out to Abraham in vain. He will beg Lazarus—finally he notices him, finally he knows his name—to come to his aid."
How much we resemble that rich man. We too rarely leave our homes and the boundaries of our daily concerns. We are always rushing, always busy, always anxious. We do not see Lazarus. We do not answer his cries. We do not go looking for him. We ignore Lazarus and the thousand needs that surround us, that press at our doors and demand our attention. And yet we feel at peace with ourselves as men and as Christians.
Only by stepping outside the suffocating fence of our small, false security can we distance ourselves from this man whom we despise in our hearts and whom Jesus condemns so harshly.
Tea Cabras, 2004