We are offering a series of fifteen posts on living out the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Today is the second post in our series and focuses on: Feed the Hungry.

We are talking about the ways we live out the Corporal Works of Mercy in our daily lives. The first of the Corporal Works is Feed the Hungry.

Don’t you feel like you spend half of your life doing this? Why does everyone we love need to eat all the time? We plan, we prep, we cook, we serve, we clean it up, and then we do it again.

When our babies are born they are constantly hungry! It is actually a reflection of God’s mercy when you spend all the hours of your day feeding that tiny infant. Their need is profound at the beginning of their lives, requiring your actual body, whether you feed them from your body or not. An infant cannot feed himself. But have you ever stopped to consider that you are fulfilling the commandment of Christ to feed the hungry? And more importantly, he goes so far as to say that when you feed the hungry, you are feeding HIM. Next time you are filled with frustration and guilt for all of the things you aren’t getting done when you sit and feed your baby, stop and imagine the infant Jesus. As you feed your children, you feed the least of these – and you are feeding Christ.

We are certainly called to feed the poor among us but often as mothers we convince ourselves that we are not serving the Church because we can’t be in the mission fields, or we are severely limited financially in what we can give, or we don’t have the time and freedom to give within the poor communities around us. But you are giving. You feed the hungry every day! And as they grow, you feed them more and more. This Corporal Work of Mercy is a permanent part of your vocation.  

You are also the first to introduce your children to the most important food of all – the Bread of Life. You are a reflection of God’s love; you are the Domestic Church. You fulfill their needs, you save them from hunger, and in the safety of your home they grow to understand the life-giving Bread that will sustain them forever. Imagine how much easier it is for a child in a loving home to believe that there is a loving God. You feed the hungry because that is what Jesus has called you to do, and it is so much more than the food you put on the table.