Compassion and Charity:

Compassion and Charity:

Paul in I Cor. 13 asserts that without charity nothing is of any worth. And he concludes that chapter saying that: ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’ Yes, there is no doubt that charity is what the ailing soul, the grieving soul needs. But it only consoles, not cures. And there is better way, of prevention. ‘Prevention is better than cure.’ But those who live on the trade of cure may not really like prevention which might leave them jobless.

Here, I remember a scene from Jose Saramago’s ‘The Gospel According to Jesus Christ’. Presenting a conversation between God and Satan at the background of Jesus’ impending death, Satan proposes a treaty [to bid no to his evil ways so as to save God’s son from death and people from damnation. But astonishingly God doesn’t accept it saying: ‘You should receive me into Your Heavenly Kingdom, my past offences redeemed by those I shall not commit in future, that You accept and preserve my obedience as in those happy days when I was one of Your chosen angels, Lucifer, You called me, the bearer of light… if You… grant me… pardon… then Evil will cease at once. Your son will not have to die… Good will prevail… all will end as if it had never been… No, I neither accept nor pardon you, I much prefer you as you are and, were it possible, I’d prefer you to become even worse than you are… Because the Good I represent cannot exist without the Evil you represent… if you were to come to an end, so would I, for Me to be Goodness, it is essential that you should continue to be Evil…’

By extension, suffering is what makes the church or for that matter any religion relevant. So, it can’t, rather should not eradicate suffering for its survival. Hence, what it could do at the most is charity and only charity which has all its bye-products…! Here people may point out the great examples of Mother Teresa and other good Samaritans in the manner of Jesus… But these people conveniently forget a serious, rather persistent attitude of Jesus (biblical tradition) towards wealth, the rich and his admonition to his disciples while sending them to preach the Kingdom: ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.’ (Lk 9:3). ‘Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…’ (10:4). ‘…do not be anxious about your life… nor about your body… Look at the birds of the air… your heavenly Father feeds them… Consider the lilies of the field… even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these… your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.’ (Mt 6:25-33). Do not these and any number of other instances in the gospels prove beyond doubt that Jesus wanted a permanent solution for all sufferings calling it the ‘reign of God’ for which needs repentance. This is what the Pope highlights in his encyclical ‘The Joy of the Gospel’ suggesting a structural change against the structures of evil rather than mere charity…

Church was all along comfortable with charity and towards this end institutions were built, congregations were created, not really bothering to mind what the consequences were other than the temporary relief then and there. However, there wasn’t any sign of decrease in poverty and suffering for the poor. In fact the chasm between the rich and the poor is widening day after day and the reign of god remains a rather distant promise still!

The good news for the church is that the new pope is out rightly outspoken from the very beginning for the cause of the poor saying that no amount of charity would usher in the dawn other than a structural, radical change in the management of wealth. This was what his recent encyclical ‘The Joy of the Gospel’ proposes.  

The new free trade and open market let the flood gates open against the poor of the world facilitating the rich grow richer at the sweat of the poor. liberal economic policy dictated the markets to feed the greedy at the cost of the poor becoming poorer. In the cut throat competition and unilateral price fixation,