Community: Responding to Need

How do we respond to need? One of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching that we discuss during the spiel on Monday challenges us to respond radically—Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable. That’s a big fancy title for something that I like to summarize another way: we must meet others’ needs before filling our own wants.

I think that point is important enough to restate: we must meet others’ needs before filling our own wants. This is naturally a frightening point. Does this mean that we can’t go to the movies because some people don’t have enough to eat? And why do they get preferential option, if all people are equal in dignity? Let me tell two stories that demonstrate this principle more clearly.

The first story is about a man and his two daughters. The older daughter was about to have a birthday, and so all three of them were planning to celebrate by going ice skating. They planned their outing and excitedly awaited the festivities. Finally the older daughter’s birthday arrived, but when the younger daughter woke up she was sick with a fever. All three of them had to stay home so that the younger daughter could be cared for. Even though they were disappointed that they couldn’t go ice skating, there was a greater need in the younger daughter, and so she received the preferential option so that she could recover.

The second story takes place in a soup kitchen for the homeless. The staff was busy preparing lunch, with each person making a different part of the meal. The woman heading up the preparation called to one of her co-workers and, mentioning that they were short on some ingredients, asked him to run to the store to pick up a pound of butter. He went to the refrigerator and pointed out that they had a couple pounds of margarine that they could use. The woman turned and firmly replied, “Butter!” The man didn’t understand that we should not simply use our excess to fill people’s needs, but that preferential option calls us to give of our substance, that which reinforces dignity.

Of course, we are aware that poverty takes on many forms. When we are sensitive to various forms of poverty, it is easy to identify them and respond accordingly. Observing situations of vulnerability is not as easy, however. People are vulnerable when they are in a situation in which they can easily be ignored, marginalized, or offended, all of which harm human dignity. Those people could be the homeless in the last story, or they could be more familiar to us, such as new students or teachers at our school. Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable calls us not just to acknowledge equal dignity, but to respond to needs when they are present even if it inconveniences us.

-by Adam Austin