The Poor Always With Us

By David G. Duggan ©

Special to Virtueonline

www.virtueonline.org

April 18, 2025

There’s very little in life that I hate more than paying taxes. Unless it is waiting in line at the post office to send in my tax return. Having written enough checks in the last 45 days to feed a family of four for a year, I wasn’t exactly pleased when the line at the local post office snaked out the door. Rather than find out how long it would take to get to the head of that line, I hopped back on my bike to pedal to another branch where I hoped the line was shorter.

A mile and a half away, I was sixth in line. Several patrons ahead of me was a man in a wheel chair. I was too far away to eavesdrop but when I approached the adjacent window I asked what brought him there. “I’m asking about medical supplies which haven’t been delivered.” And I think that I have problems.

“The poor you will always have with you,” replied Jesus when Judas rebuked Him for allowing Mary to anoint His feet with nard, rather than have that Himalayan-derived perfume sold to give the proceeds to the poor (John 12). Judas may have been a hypocrite, stealing from the disciples’ common purse, but even if he had been without sin, his concern for the poor squares with Jesus’. Should we dismiss Judas’ rebuke as mere deflection from his sin?

Some of the money which I just paid to the three governments controlling my life will go for medical supplies and care, to food and shelter, to job training and education. The poor, always with us, will wait in line for these gifts from those with more who have been anointed by God’s abundance.

They also serve who stand and wait, wrote John Milton on his blindness. No medical supplies awaited him. He depended solely on God’s grace shown on the cross, confirmed in the tomb, proved in the Resurrection.

David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago. He is an occasional contributor to VOL.