"Stretch out your hand"

              Congress is considering significant cuts in the food stamp program.  Our bishops and many Catholic social service organizations, including Catholic Charities and St. Vincent de Paul are urging Congress to leave the program intact.  Although I understand the reasoning for the need for food stamps, my conservative political view balks at the basic tenants of the program and my Christian world view balks at designating the government as the primary provider for the poor.

               It is my impression that the food stamp program is bureaucratic, expensive, devoid of human dignity and riddled with fraud.  Having spent most of my professional life in the non-profit world, I find it difficult to support this enormous program when those federal dollars could be much more effectively by local hunger groups who would deliver food in a caring, human environment.  Many of these groups are secular, but many are faith based. 

               The monthly food card provides temporary nourishment for the body.  Food received from a food bank also provides nourishment and the human touch.  As an example, Meals on Wheels provides that temporary nourishment along with human contact.  For many seniors, the highlight of their day is the person who brings the food. 

               And then there are the faith based organizations that provide food, clothing and shelter, accompanied by the loving and saving words of Jesus.  Catholic Charities in DC now has a program called “A Cup of Joe” that provides breakfast in DC and it is served by volunteers who can look the recipients in the eye and greet them as a son or daughter of God.

               What is lacking in these options is the individual who reaches out and does the corporeal works of mercy in his or her neighborhood or community. As a society, even Christians have become so used to giving money to organizations, or depending on government to provide for the poor that we are no longer directly involved in the corporal works of mercy. 

               In the Psalms, there are numerous references to “stretching out our hands” to God. Recently the daily Gospel reading was from Luke 6:6-11.  In it Jesus cures a man by asking him to “stretch out your hand”.  Saint Ambrose in his Commentary on Luke writes: “Stretch out your hand often by doing favours for your neighbor, by protecting from harm one who suffers under the weight of calumny; stretch out your hand to the poor man who begs from you; stretch out your hand to the Lord, asking for pardon for your sins.  This is how you stretch out your hand, and this is how you will be cured.”

               How often do I stretch out my hands?  If more people stretched out there hands to the local poor, how much better would our communities thrive? How will God look upon my activity, or lack of it, with the poor on judgment day?