Christian: To Be an Example of Mercy and Compassion

In order to show the world the compassion of Christ, we must become like Christ to others in many different ways.  Those ways can sometimes challenge where we are in our attitudes about others--actually, they must always challenge us and move us from where we are toward conversion.

It really came as no surprise to me that a good number of Californians are opposed to the measure to include illegal or undocumented immigrants in the universal health plan:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to cover illegal immigrants as part of his universal health care plan, but a new poll shows that a majority of Californians oppose that idea.

Only 37 percent of adults, and 32 percent of voters, say illegal immigrants should be included, according to the poll taken Jan. 2-6 by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. However, 52 percent of adults, and 50 percent of voters, say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone, as opposed to relying on employers or individuals to provide coverage.

source

The prevailing attitude serves as a counter example of the attitude and position that we as true followers of Christ must take.  We must be willing to give sacrificially to others--we must learn to welcome the stranger, not only in word but in deed as well.

While I haven't yet checked the Catholic blogosphere for a reaction to the call to include the undocumented in the health care plan, I suspect there is plenty of self-righteous indignation and a prevailing attitude that it's not our responsibility to provide health care for those who are not citizens of our nation.  I would not be surprised in the least to find that there are plenty of people claiming to be Christian who opposed to universal health care in whatever form it takes.  Health care, in my understanding of Catholic social justice teaching, is a right for everyone, and it is a duty on our part as a society to provide.

Wholeheartedly I believe that we must reach out with our wealth and resources as a nation to those who are among us as strangers, and not just in terms of individual works.  As a society, a collective force in the world, we stand to do far more good by the enactment of just laws than we ever could hope to do by individual acts of mercy and charity alone.  I say this, of course, without diminishing the importance of our individual acts or the ongoing need for them.

It'll be interesting to see what further arguments develop over the inclusion of undocumented people in California's plan.

Comments

[Carol]

Whatever we have, we have it from God. We know that, and we know we aren't taking it with us... It is only for blessing with. The poorest souls in Calcutta needed to share something with Mother Teresa's sisters who served, and with one another. And they did.

But most in America are not 1/8 that destitute. Life isn't for living, it is for loving. All that most any of us would need to see, to understand the importance of openness, is the tears in the eye of a child whose Dad will die from injuries or illness, simply because he is not "documented." He will know there are people who not only don't give a damn, but will stand by that strange principle unto his death.. and for what? What is gained when we have a chance to share, but keep it instead?

What we also need to do is to make it easier and cheaper for folks to BE documented, if that is the name of the game. What poor immigrant has 5 years' worth of money to put toward that long, hard journey.. after coming here hungry and perhaps unskilled?

[forget me not]

Putting together 5 years of pay is not a problem. There are cynical, hard hearted, evil men and women who lend them the money and then make them labor as slaves for longer than 5 years. That is the whole name of the game. The hard hearted cynics are often corrupt bureaucrats or businessmen from the hosting nation, aided by corrupt traitors from the "donor country".

[Carol]

Well, that is certainly a wrinkle I hadn't explored. How grotesque.

One can no longer wonder why Christ sweat blood in His agony. Yet, it's the love of folks like you and DDW and many others that He saw in His Simon of Cyrene, that He beheld in His Veronica, that He perhaps intuited within the comforting angel sent unto Him.