"And if thou draw out they soul to the hungry and satisfy the
afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness
be as the noonday."
- Isaiah 58:10
Behind every pain of man there is a person. If a doctor or a nurse sees
only the wound or the ailment and fails to minister to the patient as
such, he or she renders only a partial service.
The same is true of helping people who are in want. More than physical
hunger is involved. Back of it is a personality who feels the physical
distress and, perhaps is embarrassed by his present plight. Beside food
and clothing he requires, a sympathetic understand which regards him
not as an object of charity, but as a neighbor in the sense in which
Jesus used the term.
The Prophet Isaiah says that our souls are to go out to . . .
"And if thou draw out they soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday."
- Isaiah 58:10
Behind every pain of man there is a person. If a doctor or a nurse sees only the wound or the ailment and fails to minister to the patient as such, he or she renders only a partial service.
The same is true of helping people who are in want. More than physical hunger is involved. Back of it is a personality who feels the physical distress and, perhaps is embarrassed by his present plight. Beside food and clothing he requires, a sympathetic understand which regards him not as an object of charity, but as a neighbor in the sense in which Jesus used the term.
The Prophet Isaiah says that our souls are to go out to the hungry. Love, born at the Cross of the Savior, is to reach out not only to the body, but also to the afflicted soul. Of such service our Savior will say on the Day of Judgment: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto on of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
Christian friends, unless we as followers of the Savior, therefore, give of ourselves, we are not helping as we ought. That is what St. Paul meant when he wrote: "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
If we observe another's need,
And try that need to fill,
Then in the name of Christ our LORD
We do the Father's will.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - We're richer when we give and poorer when we keep.