Natural disasters bring with them a certain mysterious power to recalibrate a person’s understanding of what humans are and what they are for. Values seem to get tossed in a whirlwind like the trees and powerlines in a hurricane – and in the aftermath, inexplicably, they just fall back into right order within the soul. Parents, brothers and sisters matter like never before. Neighbors matter like never before. The parish matters like never before. Giving thanks matters like never before.
As I have personally witnessed in the region surrounding my home in western North Carolina following the devastation of Hurricane Helene, the need to perform works of mercy has, so far, outpaced the need to “return to normal.” There is a sense that if the destroyed towns and neighborhoods were to simply return to the previous way of life, we would lose something essential that has been embraced in this hour of catastrophe, something inescapably human.
One answer to the constant question of why God permits evil is that the experience of charity after disaster enables humans again to understand that they are good, that they were made to be good and to do good to others.
This age’s conditioned reliance on digital devices, the internet, social media and screened entertainment inoculates people against authentic Christian modes of life, carving into our hearts an attitude that we are self-sufficient, that we do not need to rely on a community or friends or neighbors to be happy.
This is more catastrophic than any storm, because it directly contradicts the vision of life based on the Gospels and the Church, which is a real, flesh-and-blood, material, communal and thus sacramental existence. Helene brought back this understanding of the world and our nature to those affected, especially when cell service went down.
Who is your neighbor?
“Love your neighbor” is one of the most down-to-earth commands Jesus ever gave. “Neighbor” does not mean everybody in an abstract sense; it only loosely means people on the other side of the world. What it really means is the people nearest to you, in your neighborhood, in your apartment complex, on your block. Those people, regardless of income bracket, are the ones that most need your hospitality, your gifts, your meals, your listening heart.
There is no need to worry if there isn’t a nearby pregnancy center for you to support; there is probably a single mom or a couple expecting a baby living near you who need your help. And “help” does not mean merely buying toys and books for the baby; it can mean your handiness with projects or free time to run errands for them. It can go as far as holding their baby during
Mass so they can concentrate their hearts on the liturgy. The sky is the limit – all that is required to begin is to knock on your neighbor’s door.
If you are in danger or in immediate need, you would much rather have the people who live right beside you have the means to take care of you, because they can reach you in time, instead of waiting for emissaries from a larger institution who might take hours to get there.
The apostolic Church understood this. What Luke describes in Acts 4, about a concrete community in a concrete area, is not just a lofty ideal; it is the clearest explanation of what it means to be the Church on a material level: “The whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35).
If there is a neighbor or parishioner who is in need in any way, you ought to know about it and know how to get them help, or at least refer them to someone who can. If you and your parish have not cultivated this degree of awareness and depth of relationship within your own community, you are not living up to the demands of the Gospel.
“Feed the hungry” means feeding the physically hungry, but it also means feeding those who are hungry for presence, for hospitality, for conversation, for relationship, for the knowledge that someone in their midst cares for them and knows them. There is plenty of that kind of hunger to go around; the loneliness epidemic in younger generations is well known.
Know one another’s needs
Frankly, the task isn’t that hard. Get to know the people who sit close to you in the pews. Invite them over to your house for dinner. Take interest in their stories and tell them your own. Be with them. Offer their intentions up with the prayers of the priest at the Mass. All of this constitutes the fundamental idea of belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ.
Helene activated this all-encompassing sense of charity and communion in the hearts of many. The danger, as much a risk for me as for anyone else, will be to fall again into a complacent, isolated, “safe” Catholicism and the consequent attitude that such abundant works of love are only demanded of the Christian after a disaster. Do we need a hurricane every weekend to remind us of the good that we are called to be and do in ordinary existence?
The separation of the sheep and goats described in Matthew 25 concerns itself not with a few extraordinary, occasional acts of fallen people but with daily, commonplace acts of the redeemed.
The question is not whether you managed to feed the hungry every once in a while but whether you took on the mode of life conditioned by feeding the hungry.
May we all pray desperately for the overflowing abundance of grace that overwhelms the divisions and barriers of sin and produces authentic communities of Christian charity and belonging.
Andrew Tolkmith is editing coordinator for the Word on Fire publishing team. He studied theology at Belmont Abbey College and lives in the North Carolina mountains with his wife and daughter. This is a shortened version of an article that ran on www.wordonfire.com.