July 8 Sat
“Giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2447). Charity toward the poor comes in many forms: we can give them fish for a day or teach them to fish.

What constitutes “the poor” encompasses a broad range, from destitution to struggling to make ends meet. Charity to the former may include money and clothing; to the latter it could be scholarships to school or free training for a professional occupation. The point for the giver is to meet the need, whatever that may be, in order both to ease the recipient’s suffering and to enable him to feel God’s love through our compassion. In doing so we show “a preferential love” for the poor that is a hallmark of a true disciple of Christ. (Catechism 2448)

But one should not be “reductionist.” What about the “spiritually poor?” In our day, sad to say, real spiritually poor people exist in droves: first, the lonely, depressed, addicted, and suicidal are some of them. Of course, these have nothing to do with the “poor in spirit,” who are the humble before God. (Matthew 5:3)

Then, those who live without God in their lives are also spiritually poor.

As with material poverty, spiritual poverty has a range: those who do not know God or have forsaken Him are the most destitute; those who have God but not Christ are a rung up; those who have Christ but not the Catholic Church are less poor but still suffer from not having their needs completely met; those who are Catholic but do not attend Mass are blind to their poverty.

The spiritually poor surely need to receive charity too. Should we exclude them from among “the poor”? What should this charity be?

Some think, from a materialistic worldview, that faith is relative, and secondary to persons’ “real”— that is, material — needs. Holders of this view may well believe in Christ, but they do not think, contrary to our Lord’s repeated warnings and the continuous teaching of the Church, that what they believe matters or has anything to do with salvation.