Seasons of Charitable Giving

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The seasons of Advent and Christmas have forever been associated with charity, special acts of generosity and attention to the poor and the underprivileged.  

We might well  ask about the connection between these expressions of charity and the Advent season that culminates in Christmas.  Can we identify the underlying impetus that drives concern for generosity toward the poor at this time of year?

Some time ago, I came across an advertisement in a newspaper seeking volunteers that read, “Feeling good helping the poor.” In truth, believers are properly inspired to concern for others not because it makes them feel good but because Christ’s self-sacrifice – into which we are baptized – requires of us a fundamental orientation toward neighbor.  Christian charity and justice are founded in the outlook and behavior of Jesus himself.

To the question “Why should Christians act justly and charitably?,” St. Teresa of Avila provided a simple answer. She wrote, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours; yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world; yours are the feet with which he walks to do good; yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. …”

Centuries before Teresa, the prophet Isaiah declared, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.”

The marvelous visions of Isaiah found their long-awaited fulfillment in Jesus. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus identified himself with the roles of savior and redeemer prophesied by Isaiah. We know from the Gospels that at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth; he stood up and read the passage from Isaiah I just quoted. He finished with the words, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

When we place Jesus’ ministry against the rich background of the visionary promises of Isaiah and other prophets, we come to see its true character. By word and deed, Jesus manifested in miraculous ways the healing and liberating power of the Kingdom and of God’s universal reign. Jesus brought  good news to a world of bad news. He healed the downcast and brokenhearted. He proclaimed God’s favor to all humankind. He not only proclaimed God’s favor, he gave it flesh; he embodied and manifested God’s favor.

Against this background we can see more fully the richness and profundity of the Christian commitment to justice and charity. Christians have in them God’s Spirit of justice; they are called to make practical and effective the Kingdom of justice inaugurated by Jesus. Christ came once in Bethlehem, and will return in glory at the end of time, but he comes now, today, as light in darkness, as Spirit who liberates, as cause of rejoicing. The good that you and I can do this Advent and Christmas is far more important than we might think. It is the stuff of which the Kingdom is made.

Charity and mercy are themes not only of Advent and Christmas; they are models for the whole year. Advent and Christmas are not merely times of merriment and fun – though these have their rightful place. They are more fundamentally times of participating in Jesus’ ministry  of caring for God’s  most needy children.