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When I share stories like the one about the Cherry Boutique<\/a>, or the trouble with poor neighborhoods<\/a> or the mystery of free lunches at the pool<\/a>, I get an outpouring of comments from my readers that they had no idea this kind of thing happened, and asking what they can do.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one of the reasons I share stories about poverty up here in Northern Appalachia so often: because It needs to be seen. I\u2019ve witnessed a lot of terrible realities that don\u2019t seem very well known. Everybody knows that poverty exists, but they don\u2019t often see the dark, uncomfortable details of how that can happen to people and how that really looks. We don\u2019t get accurate representations of what the obstacles really are, and how ugly and complicated it can be in practice. We all know it\u2019s painful, but we might not realize the was in which it hurts. I didn\u2019t know anything about what it was to be poor before I lived here and had a taste of it myself, so I\u2019m showing you.<\/p>\n As for what we can do to make poverty and homelessness stop\u2013 well, that\u2019s a more complicated question.<\/p>\n Jesus did say that \u201cthe poor you will always have with you. \u201d I don\u2019t believe He was declaring something He wanted to happen or stating some immutable fact about what humans are; I believe He was predicting that the sins people were committing two thousand years ago would keep on being committed. The world is broken.\u00a0There are some ways in which the world can be fixed, and we should strive for those. We should look critically at our society and fight for a better one. Vote. Picket. Boycott. Write letters. Sign petitions. Perform acts of civil disobedience if you think it will make a difference. Start a foundation. Those are part of our duty, and they can help to fix certain things, and certain people will have a much easier time because of it, and that\u2019s great. But the world will continue to be broken.<\/p>\n And in a broken world, people will get hurt.\u00a0That\u2019s inevitable. There are certain steps you can take to protect yourself from much of the hurt, but in the end, someone\u2019s going to get hurt. And it won\u2019t be the hurt person\u2019s fault. This is one of the worst lessons to learn. We want to rebel against it with every fiber of our being. Our natural sense of justice tells us that getting hurt is bad and should never happen\u2013 or, if it happens, it ought to be a penalty. Getting hurt should be something that happens to people who do bad things to earn it. Life should be an American Chutes and Ladders board, a series of morality plays where good little boys and girls ascend to predictable rewards and bad little boys and girls slide down into just punishments. But it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We Christians should know that most of all. We venerate the cross\u2013 that most terrifying symbol that you can be a literally perfect Person and still be destroyed, but that won\u2019t be the end. People get hurt through no fault of their own, and that\u2019s something that is going to keep happening.<\/p>\n And we need to seek Christ in the people who have been destroyed.<\/p>\n Go back to that Gospel passage I quoted, where Jesus says \u201cthe poor you will always have with you.\u201d It\u2019s in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26, the very next chapter after He tells the parable of the sheep and the goats\u2013 or rather, the prophecy of the sheep and the goats. In Matthew 25 He makes it very clear that that\u2019s not just a metaphor the way the parable of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son is; it\u2019s something that really is going to happen. One day, Christ is going to come back and reveal that He was present to us in the people who needed our help, and in the ways we refused to help them, we refused to help Him. That\u2019s the wire we\u2019re all going to come down to; that\u2019s the yardstick by which He will judge. After He says this, in chapter 26, Jesus is visiting friends in Bethany when a woman anoints His head with expensive perfume. The disciples are upset\u2013 Matthew doesn\u2019t say it was only Judas who robbed the money pouch, specifically, who were mad at the woman, but \u201cthe disciples\u201d in the plural. \u201cWhy this waste? The perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus answered them, \u201cWhy are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>The poor you will always have with you,\u00a0but you will not always have me.\u00a0hen she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.\u00a0<\/span>Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The disciples want to take their money and create a program to help \u201cthe poor\u201d in the abstract, and Jesus doesn\u2019t say they shouldn\u2019t do that. They probably should. But they are upset at the money spent on a luxurious gift for someone and call it a waste. And that\u2019s when Jesus tells them that actually, it\u2019s the woman who got it right. She looked at a real Person who was there in front of her and did something really generous to honor that Person. \u201cThe poor\u201d\u2013 that enormous abstract unwashed mass who live in the inner city or the Appalachian mountains or a third-world country\u2013 will always exist. But Christ we will not always have with us: individual encounters with Christ are fleeting. They come and go. They are before us in actual people, humans with needs who come into our lives and then disappear again. And we need to honor Christ in them by having compassion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Poor\u201d you will always have with you, and there are things we ought to be doing to improve society to help with that. Those are\u00a0 not optional things. But you will not always have this or that fleeting opportunity to honor Christ. You won\u2019t always be walking down this particular street and encounter this particular panhandler. What would you do if the panhandler was Christ? You won\u2019t always be stuck at home caring for a relative who is sick and afraid and wants to be comforted. What would you do if this relative was Christ? You won\u2019t always have an opportunity to buy a nice Christmas present for the church gift drive<\/a> for the nursing home, or to offer a poor person from your parish a ride to Mass. You won\u2019t always have the opportunity to be especially patient with the person in front of you in line. You won\u2019t always have the opportunity to welcome someone who\u2019s new and looks lonely. What would you do if these people were Christ?<\/p>\n Because they are Christ.<\/p>\n I am usually very bad at noticing and honoring Christ. But when I happen to wake up and see Him, I paint an icon<\/a> to show you, and to remind myself so that maybe I won\u2019t miss Him so often.<\/p>\n The most important thing you can do to help is notice Him as well, and do what you can for Him when you do, and then take it from there.<\/p>\n (image via Pixabay)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mary Pezzulo is the author of <\/em>Meditations on the Way of the Cross<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n