For each family that is with us, and each family we come in contact with, let us pray, keeping in mind the Holy Family which dwelt in peace and poverty and love and joy. Sometimes it is hard to see Christ in his poor. Sometimes it is hard to see the Blessed Mother in women we come in contact with. But if we minister to each other, as we would want to serve the Holy Family, not judging the faults of others, but serving them with joy and with respect, then that is the true way of seeing Christ in our neighbor. If He thought them worth dying for, who are we to judge?
I remember one family on the west side, a longshoreman who got only a day or so on the docks every few weeks. He drank, his wife drank, and their children were growing up disorderly and dishonest. No one would help them. They sold the clothes they were given for liquor. The relief people said the man had work and didn’t report it to them. Consequently often the family went hungry. We spent all one winter giving food and clothing to this family. It was indeed hard to see Christ in these poor. Yet for no other reason could we help them. Without the religious motive, it was a waste of time. With this motive, not one crumb of our help was wasted. Provided we did it with love. And of course if you help people, you soon begin to love them. Just as gratitude makes you love people.
Dorothy Day from “The Duty of Delight, The diaries of Dorothy Day”. Edited by Robert Ellsberg
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