Wednesday Witness: Checking the ‘Charity’ Box

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving already, and this Sunday, Advent kicks off. Christmas, it seems, is right around the corner, and the world is already in a rush.

It’s easy this time of year to get caught up in the holiday hustle and forget those around us who don’t have basic necessities, let alone comforts and niceties. It’s easy to mean well—to intend to give to charity, then run out time and money between now and New Year’s Eve and resolve to do better next time. And with so many gift trees, food drives, and red-kettle bell-ringers, it’s easy to give little something in passing and feel good that we “did our part.”

Last night at the local St. Vincent de Paul meeting, we discussed a practice called twinning, in which two or more conferences team up to provide for someone who needs more assistance than any one conference can afford. The question at hand was whether we need a policy or guidelines for when and how we twin with other conferences. The consensus was no—it is better for us to actively discern each case and not reduce our charity to examining criteria and checking boxes.

The same idea applies to our personal giving. It’s easy to neglect helping the poor altogether. It’s easy to get cash back and drop a little in the kettle. It’s easy to just pick a charity and click Donate or write a check. But it’s hard to raise our gaze to those around us, to engage in the process of giving, think and pray, and decide when and how to give.

But that’s what we are called to do. Jesus shows us, time and again, that love is an action word.

So today, I want to share a small idea that helps my bride and I stay attentive to giving amid our Christmas preparations. Like many people, I suspect, our holiday spending tends to creep up as Christmas gets closer. A few years back we committed to tithing 10 percent of our Christmas budget to helping the poor in our community, donating to St. Vincent de Paul, the Hanover Food Shelf, and specific friends or family we know need help.

We pray about and discuss these donations, and if we spend more, we discern and give more. This small practice makes us more aware of our holiday spending, more thoughtful about our Christmas charity, and more generous overall.

We are still a long way from the widow who gave her last two coins, entrusting her next meal to the Lord’s providence. But it’s a step in a good direction.

This column is part of a new, weekly series on what the Lord is doing in my heart, specifically encouraging me to simplify my own life in order practice the virtue of charity and the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Come back each Wednesday to read the latest or find them all online at on my Archangel Stomp website.