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Third corporal work of mercy: Clothing the naked

People should not worry about the clothes they wear but focus on giving to others

Published: April 1, 2016   

By Mike Nelson
Catholic News Service

CNS / Alexander Demianchuk
People look through donated clothing Aug. 18, 2014, at a temporary tent camp for Ukrainian refugees near the Russian-Ukrainian border. Before Jesus be-gan teaching about mercy, his cousin John the Baptist was making the same point to all who would listen. “Whoever has two tunics,” John said, “should share with the person who has none.”

Before Jesus began teaching about mercy, and sharing with and caring for our neighbor, his cousin John the Baptist was making the same point to all who would listen.

“Whoever has two tunics,” John said, “should share with the person who has none” (Luke 3:11).

For me, that teaching brings to mind the old joke in TV comedy, in which a frazzled woman flings open her closet, surveys her wardrobe — an inventory equal to that of a fair-sized department store — and wails, “I haven’t got a thing to wear!”

I suspect that millions throughout the world who can’t afford closets, much less closets full of clothes, wouldn’t find that joke quite so funny. I can imagine these folks, surveying (to use an old frame of reference) Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection and wondering, “How many feet did this woman have?”

Which brings us to “clothing the naked,” a corporal work of mercy, aimed at addressing a very basic need for all people.

Several times a year, our family donates items to a local agency that serves low-income populations. Those items almost always include clothing, not high fashion, certainly, but good, wearable clothing to assist people who might otherwise have very little.

Thanks to my wife, I have a nice wardrobe, and I always enjoy receiving new items of clothing for Christmas and birthday presents. And yet, I look at what I already have and I think — barring some significant change in body shape — I could probably make do with what I have for quite a few years.

Just last year, in the midst of closet and garage cleaning, I came upon the first sweater my wife gave me. I wore the heck out of it for a good 15 years before the elbows began wearing thin. I kept it for sentimental reasons, and I was thrilled to see it again. I washed and wore it, even with the thin elbows.

It was still a good-looking sweater, the elbows notwithstanding. And partly because it was a happy but poignant reminder that we don’t necessarily need as much as we think we do.

John the Baptist — no fashion plate he, judging by artists’ renderings over the centuries — knew this quite clearly, as he told the tax collectors who sought baptism and guidance from him: “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed” (Luke 3:13).

And in his Sermon on the Mount, (in Matthew 5-7), Jesus tells us — especially the Imelda Marcoses of the world — something more about clothing in the eyes of God:

“Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?”

In other words, says Jesus, quit worrying about what to wear, or what to eat, or what to drink. “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all,” he says. “But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”

For it is through seeking the kingdom that we understand how sharing those “things” with those in need helps make that teaching a reality.

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