In a recent issue of American Magazine, Mark Neilsen wrote a wonderful piece called “Asking for Change: The challenge of giving without grudges.” He tells of his ongoing and frequent encounters with a poor woman named Donna. She appears in his life when there is need in her life. What was especially wonderful about the article was his own ongoing reflection on his reactions and emotions surrounding each encounter: “Like the time she asked me to loan her $20 for an emergency, and I came to learn that it really was not a loan at all…” Be you pastor or parishioner, in modern life almost everyone has encountered their own “Donna.” Perhaps the first time we might actually expect they will repay the loan. After that how many of us realize it isn’t a loan, but as Mark describes: “a gift, minus the generosity.”  I think there are also other descriptions: “a gift, with the warning – ‘don’t let me catch you using it for any foolishness.'”  Or perhaps, “a gift minus the glance” – as in never making eye contact and just hoping the moment passes as soon as possible.I think every ministry has its own “regulars.” The one who catches us on the street, around the park, on the front steps of the church, or when we are hustling to the next thing on our list.  When Donna catches Mark on the street or comes up and knocks on his door:

“Typically breathless and perspiring, she comes to make a pitch—for bus fare or a ride home, for money to pay for a prescription she waves in her hand or occasionally offering to sell small bags of coffee or some other commodity she has come upon. Donna is resourceful. Known among the neighbors for her panhandling as well as her stories—her seven children who have not eaten for days, her grandmother who died out of state and without money for a funeral, the surgery she is about to have—Donna has worn out several welcomes, even at some church pantries. She is probably addicted to drugs, and no doubt a liar, but she is clearly in great need. After hearing the words of the Hebrew prophets and the story of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25 over many years, I find it hard to turn her away with nothing. Not impossible, but hard.”

There is a wonderful honesty in his reaction: “Her life is so precarious and my sympathy so very thin. She knocks on the door, and her need opens up like a gaping abyss from which I need to stand back and carefully dole out any little favor at arms-length.” The writer reflects how grudgingly he gives anything at all from his storehouse of time and treasure.

A story from Pope Francis often intrudes upon these encounters. Pope Francis commented that when hearing confessions back in Argentina, he would ask the penitents if they ever gave alms. Did they look in the eyes of the beggars and touch their hands? In those moments the Pope remarked, we are “touching the flesh of Christ, taking upon ourselves this suffering for the poor.” The Pope went on to say that Christ became poor in the Incarnation in order “to walk along the road with us,” to share our life. “If we reach out to the flesh of Christ [in the poor], we begin to understand…what this poverty, the Lord’s poverty, actually is; and this is far from easy.”

The article went on to describe a number of other encounters with Donna. One in which she asked him to buy a chicken dinner,

“A family pack, all thighs.” He asked her “‘How much is that going to cost?’ Why? I guess I just wanted her to be aware that I had my limits. ‘Not much’ she said.” In that moment he wondered did she need to suffer his scorn just to get a few pieces of fried chicken?

While he was buying the chicken dinner, Donna took spare change and took money from the car. When confronted, she denied it: “I didn’t take no money out of your car. I swear before God, I didn’t take no money.”

“Angry, saddened, and frustrated by the whole interchange, I just turned, walked back to the car and drove off. Hadn’t I tried to do the decent thing? Hadn’t I gone the extra mile to buy her some food? Did she have to steal and then lie about it? What exactly is the lesson there?”

“This is far from easy, said the pope.” If we reach out to the flesh of Christ in the poor, we begin to understand poverty, the poor, and Christ. Indeed, it is far from easy.