During the last few months, I have found myself reflecting more on how best I can help the poor and the marginalized in our society. People have asked me for money or food more often than not. Some even spend the whole day sitting outside our gates waiting for us to come out, so that they can beg from us. Some are genuinely in need of help, whilst others are just crooks seeking to make quick money. It is an inevitable fact that most people are suffering and in need of assistance. The faces of these beggars alone, speaks volumes of their daily challenges in an economy that is in a crisis.
Despite me acknowledging this reality, I have found myself asking more questions than finding solutions. Why are these people only sitting outside our community houses? Some even travel long distances to beg from us, Why? Will it make a difference if I give a begging mother a $5 note? Are my intentions pure, or I am just looking for self-gratification, to feel good about myself that I can give someone a $5 note? Is this not bigger than me?
However, I have come to the realization that we only need ‘tattoos of compassion’. Compassion will determine all our actions, intentions and projects. According to the gospel tradition of Matthew chapter 25, it is Jesus who is hungry and sitting outside our gates every day! It is Jesus whom I meet along Pendennis Road asking me for a $5 note to buy food. It is Jesus who knocks at our gates and we ignore, or turn away! I strongly believe that God is calling us in this day and age to become compassionate as he is compassionate.
To say that God is compassionate is to say that God is “like a womb.” God is the one who gives birth to us, the “mother” that gives birth to us. As a mother loves the children of her womb and feels for them, so also God loves and feels for the poor in our society. We are being invited to feel as God feels, and to act as God acts, in a life-giving and nourishing way. For me, this is a defining mark as we walk with the poor and marginalized in our societies. May we cultivate a greater identification with Christ, who is compassionate, so that we can be worthy instruments in the hands of God.
By Madimutsa Tafadzwa, S.J