It's Holy Week and I'm trying to follow Christ in His sufferings, and sure enough, people problems get in the way. There are basically two sets of people in my life, one is blood relatives who are fine materially but complain they have nobody to talk to. They never learned how to keep themselves company, and they've antagonized almost all family and friends along the way. They're CINO and often casually drop unprompted snide comments about my faith.
The other set are non-Catholic, basically agnostic former friends now suffering the consequences of a fast and loose youth. I say they're former friends because I see now that everything goes in one direction, and I know not to expect anything in return. I help with housework and driving to appointments because they have no family nearby and the rest of this onetime friend group either doesn't offer or isn't in any better shape. With this set too, spiritual works of mercy seem to go nowhere. On top of that, they sabotage corporal works of mercy with self-defeating habits. If I walked away, they'd have to rely on whomever the government sends out.
I figure the comfortable complainers don't need me but maybe the messed up dissipated ones do. The trouble is that I'm often a moment away from lapsing into silent anger and resentment. I've learned not to say anything, but it still feeds a lifelong tendency to think I have to fix everything around me. Some days it feels like these people are more a conduit for diabolical mockery than anything else.
It's not the sort of thing I want to bother a priest with. I'll probably keep working on trying to take this as necessary reparation on my part. Still, what we are we supposed to do in these cases? Is it wrong to see in St. Paul's Epistles any leeway? I'm thinking of 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 about shunning habitual sinners, after trying Galatians 6:1 about gentle correction and recalling Christ's words about charity too.
Topic: limits to charity (Read 2558 times)