Write for God

The widow's mite

Our family is registered at one church and now attending another one more regularly. In fact, we were at the second church yesterday for Ash Wednesday.

The church where we’re registered published a list in the after-Christmas bulletin that gave us pause. An entire page contained the names of everyone who gave more than $100 during holiday season collections. Of course, our one-income, two-parent, two-children household would never have made the grade, but not from lack of desire.

I found it odd that a Catholic church would publish information that should be a private matter. After all, what we place in the collection basket is what we can afford to give according to our means. It’s between us and God. Some parishioners ask for receipts at the end of the year for tax purposes, so every church office keeps an accounting of what is donated, but it’s not a matter of public record what a family can afford to tithe.  In fact, a higher authority than the IRS, Jesus himself, had something to say on the subject:

But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what the right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be a secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. 

Yet, there it was, a list of more affluent donors during a time when joblessness and foreclosures are denying families the most basic of rights to feed, clothe and house themselves. A woman I know sent an email to her friends asking if she could pick up a few dollars doing odd jobs around their houses while she searches for a job. Another friend told me she was willing to work for $10 an hour if she could just find employment.

Mazel tov to the people who are comfortable enough to give more than $100 in the collection basket for Christmas. It’s nice to know that there wasn’t a grocery or power bill they had to pay like others who were not on the list. A journalist in our daily paper wrote about having her credit card stolen and how sorry she felt for the thief. One of the purchases made by the thief was paying a $400 utility bill. We’re living in sad times.

I wasn’t uncomfortable knowing that there are more fortunate people in our parish, but I couldn’t imagine why the church would publish such a list. Will it open those who are more affluent to theft? Will folks with more money who didn’t give more than $100 be embarassed that others will think they’re cheapskates? Will the parishioners whose outward appearance suggests they’re doing well, but whose finances are dire without anyone’s knowledge, suddenly feel that everyone knows their secret? A co-worker told me about a couple she’s known for many years whose beautiful home is in foreclosure. None of their neighbors know that the husband has been searching for a job for many months. Although society as a whole doesn’t feel shame anymore, many of us who were raised right still do.

Publishing the dealings of the right hand so that the left–and everyone else in the church community–knows your collection-basket giving couldn’t have served anyone well during Christmas. I wished instead that the church had published a list of the 100 poorest people in our parish so that more of us could have helped them out during the holidays through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Times are tough for so many of us. Recognizing people for their ability to give cash doesn’t serve any useful purpose in building the body of Christ. In fact, it even made me think about giving anonymously at Mass from now on instead of using printed envelopes.

No one except God knows that a widow’s mite of two small coins that she might have placed in that same collection basket could have been all she had instead of $100 or more given from someone’s affluence. That I learned from Jesus, too.