If my faith were a Monopoly game, the church food pantry would be the space marked “free parking.” If you need food, you can go and get free food from the church, because it is the church. Simple, easy, free and occasionally massively important.
My family is not, by the mercy of God, in need of the food pantry to feed our family, but I am so glad it exists — for the sake of the people it serves, and for my own sake, every time I can donate.
I keep my involvement simple: When I do my weekly shopping, I pick up a few duplicate items of shelf-stable food — the same foods, and the same brands, that I want for my own family, because if I can afford a few extra cents to get the good kind for myself, then I can afford it for someone who doesn’t get many choices in life.
If I have one of my kids with me, I let them pick something out, so they feel more involved. Then, when we go to Mass the next day, I drop the goods off in one of the collection boxes — or, ideally, I ask one of the kids to drop it off, so they continue having a hands-on familiarity with this basic work of charity.
And that’s it. Simple, important, undemanding and effective. Free parking for Catholics.
But why would someone need a concept like “free parking” in the Church, especially if they aren’t poor and in need of its services? Because God may be simple, but our relationship with his Church can get complicated. So many aspects of our faith can become painful or confusing or fraught, and it may get harder and harder to find any point of connection with God, any spot where we can just keep things simple, and just be.
Maybe we’ve had a bad experience with someone in the parish, and, because we are human, we have a hard time untangling that relationship from our relationship with God. Sometimes it’s our fault and sometimes it’s not, but it’s fairly common to struggle with some unpleasant associations with the very place that is supposed to be our spiritual home, with the very people who are supposed to make up our spiritual family.
But donating to the food pantry is free parking! When we give, we don’t have to deal with anybody, and we don’t have to use any kind of social finesse. Absolutely anybody can plunk a case of mac and cheese into the collection box and then just walk away; and it will always be a necessary and salutary thing to do.
Maybe we’re frustrated or discouraged or mistrustful about finances in our diocese. We take our obligation to contribute to the church seriously, but we also have serious doubts that money is being used well. FOOD PANTRY, FREE PARKING. That little bag of coffee, granola bars and tuna stays right in the neighborhood and feeds someone who wants and needs it. Feeding the hungry will always be one of the least problematic transactions possible.
Maybe we’re having a hard time praying. Maybe our spiritual life is incoherent or angry or just kind of flat right now, and we can’t seem to snap out of it. Maybe we’re not in a state of grace and aren’t yet ready to do what it takes to get back. Where to go?
Food pantry! Free parking! Making a little, easy decision to give to the food pantry each week is a really good way of keeping that connection to God open when we’re not necessarily feeling it otherwise.
Good works are not a substitute for prayer. There was a whole Reformation about that. But…. Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor.
