What do we owe to the poor?

That question underlies much of our current political and social discourse. We ask it — perhaps subconsciously — when we encounter someone on a street corner asking for money, when we drive through struggling neighborhoods, or when we read about the human impact of government shutdowns or freezes on benefit payments. How we answer the question of what we owe our poor reveals something profound about our understanding of charity and justice.

Recently I re-read “Dear and Glorious Physician,” Taylor Caldwell’s masterful historical fiction about St. Luke. One of the biblical occurrences cited is “from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Mt 27:45; cf. Mk 15:33; Lk 23:44).  Caldwell depicts the celestial events experienced by the Passover throng gathered in Jerusalem as being witnessed by Luke hundreds of miles away.

On Dec. 8, the Church celebrates the 60th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II was the first “pastoral” ecumenical council in the history of the Church.  Called by St. John XXIII in 1959, the Council was not convened to settle doctrinal questions or disputes as in the past, but to bring about a great missionary renewal of the Church to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the modern world. However, the legacy of Vatican II over the past 60 years has not been without controversy. There has been much confusion and misunderstanding surrounding Vatican II because there has been a widespread misinterpretation of the Council since it’s closing sixty years ago.  

When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, thy son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, thy mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home (Jn 19:26, 27). 

With those words, the dying Christ commended his mother to the loving care of St. John the Apostle. Where Mary lived with the beloved disciple afterward is an open question.