As we are quickly coming to the end of our Lenten journey, let’s take a few moments today to reflect on the works of mercy that are available to us so we can help others. Read this excerpt below from Dorothy Day and then pray, journal, or meditate on the included questions as we inch towards Holy Week.
Works of Mercy
We do what we can, and the whole field of all the Works of Mercy is open to us. There is a saying, “Do what you are doing.” If you are a student, study, prepare, in order to give to others, and keep alive in yourself the vision of a new social order. All work, whether building, increasing food production, running credit unions, working in factories which produce for true human needs, working the smallest of industries, the handicrafts—all these things can come under the heading of the Works of Mercy, which are the opposite of the works of war.
It is a penance to work, to give oneself to others, to endure the pinpricks of community living. One would certainly say on many occasions: Give me a good, thorough, frank, outgoing war, rather than the sneak attacks, stabs in the back, sparring, detracting, defaming, hand-to-hand jockeying for position that go on in offices and “good works” of all kinds, another and miserably petty kind of war. Saint Paul said that he “died daily.” This too is penance, to be taken cheerfully, joyfully… So let us rejoice in our own petty sufferings and thank God we have a little penance to offer, in this holy season. (Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, Knopf)
Reflection questions
- Are you content where you are, “doing what you are doing”? If not, what can you do to change your situation?
- It’s hard to be grateful for our pains and sufferings, so how do we thank God even though “we have a little penance to offer?” How do you live up (or fail to live up) to these words?
- As we enter into Holy Week, what can we do to “die daily” and do good works for the benefit of others?
With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. ~Psalm 130
What should we focus on for the remainder of Lent? Just one thing.
