Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy form a practical rule of life rooted in the Gospel and taught by the Church. Explore each work, begin serving, and support mission work through restricted giving.
Feeding the hungry is a direct response to Christ's call in Matthew 25. It meets an urgent bodily need and demonstrates God's love in action.
The Church has always understood that feeding the hungry goes beyond simple charity. It recognizes the inherent dignity of every person and honors Christ present in those who suffer. From monasteries distributing bread to soup kitchens today, this work has remained central to Catholic life.
Feeding the hungry includes donating food, volunteering at food banks, supporting agricultural missions, and advocating for just economic systems. Each act of feeding the hungry is an act of worship.
Practical ways to live this work:
Providing water to the thirsty meets a fundamental need for survival. This work is both literal and spiritual, offering physical relief and a sign of Christ's living water.
Access to clean water is essential for life. This work encompasses supporting clean water initiatives, helping those in drought-affected regions, and ensuring that the thirsty—whether from poverty, illness, or crisis—receive what they need.
From ancient wells maintained by religious communities to modern water purification missions, this work has taken many forms. It calls us to stewardship of creation and concern for our neighbors' basic needs.
Practical ways to live this work:
Providing clothing restores dignity and meets a basic human need. This work recognizes that those who lack proper clothing suffer physically and emotionally.
Throughout Church history, religious orders have distributed clothing to the poor. This work addresses not only protection from the elements but also the restoration of human dignity that comes from being properly clothed.
Today this includes donating clothes, supporting clothing drives, providing professional attire for job seekers, and ensuring refugees and disaster victims receive needed garments.
Practical ways to live this work:
Providing shelter protects human life and restores security. The Church has always seen welcoming the stranger and sheltering the homeless as sacred duties.
From monasteries offering hospitality to travelers to modern homeless shelters, the Church has provided refuge for those without homes. This work addresses immediate needs while working toward long-term solutions to homelessness.
Sheltering the homeless includes supporting shelters, providing transitional housing, advocating for affordable housing, and addressing root causes of homelessness with charity and prudence.
Practical ways to live this work:
Visiting the sick brings comfort, companionship, and the presence of Christ to those who suffer. This work honors the dignity of those experiencing illness.
From religious orders founding hospitals to parish visitation ministries, the Church has cared for the sick throughout history. This work includes physical care, emotional support, prayer, and ensuring access to the sacraments.
Visiting the sick means bringing comfort through presence, supporting healthcare workers, praying with the suffering, and advocating for quality care for all.
Practical ways to live this work:
Visiting the imprisoned brings hope, dignity, and the possibility of conversion. Christ explicitly identifies with those in prison, calling us to see Him in them.
Throughout history, Christians have brought spiritual care, education, and hope to those in prison. This work recognizes that even those who have committed serious wrongs retain human dignity and the capacity for repentance.
Prison ministry includes chaplaincy, correspondence, supporting families of prisoners, advocating for just sentencing, and helping with reentry into society.
Practical ways to live this work:
Honoring the dead with proper burial respects the dignity of the human person and affirms belief in the resurrection. This work serves both the deceased and the living.
The Church has always treated burial as a sacred duty. From catacombs to Catholic cemeteries, proper care for the deceased reflects faith in resurrection and respect for the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
This work includes ensuring dignified burials for the poor, supporting funeral ministries, praying for the dead, and comforting the grieving.
Practical ways to live this work:
Sharing knowledge of the faith helps others know truth and grow in relationship with God. This work is rooted in Christ's command to teach all nations.
From the early Church's catechetical schools to modern religious education, teaching the faith has been central to Catholic life. This work includes formal instruction, evangelization, and sharing truth with charity and patience.
Today this means teaching catechism, supporting Catholic education, engaging in apologetics with gentleness, and helping others encounter the beauty of the Catholic faith.
Practical ways to live this work:
Offering wise counsel helps those struggling with doubt to find clarity and peace. This work requires prudence, patience, and trust in God's providence.
Doubt is part of the human experience. The Church recognizes that helping others work through uncertainty—whether about faith, morality, or life decisions—is a spiritual work of mercy grounded in love.
This work includes spiritual direction, mentorship, listening with compassion, and helping others discern God's will while respecting their freedom.
Practical ways to live this work:
Fraternal correction, offered with humility and charity, helps others turn from sin. This work requires wisdom, gentleness, and love for the good of the soul.
The Gospel teaches that we have a duty to help others avoid or leave sin, but this must be done with charity, prudence, and humility. Fraternal correction is an act of love, never condemnation.
This work means speaking truth with charity, offering correction privately when appropriate, supporting others in conversion, and praying for those trapped in sin.
Practical ways to live this work:
Enduring wrongs with patience imitates Christ's own suffering. This work transforms suffering into an offering of love and witnesses to Gospel values.
Christ calls us to bear wrongs with patience, not passive acceptance of evil, but active love that refuses to return evil for evil. This work builds peace and breaks cycles of retaliation.
Bearing wrongs patiently includes responding to injuries with grace, refusing to seek revenge, praying for those who wrong us, and trusting in God's justice.
Practical ways to live this work:
Forgiveness reflects God's mercy and frees both the forgiver and the forgiven. Christ commands us to forgive as we have been forgiven.
Forgiveness is at the heart of Christian life. The Our Father reminds us that we must forgive to be forgiven. Willing forgiveness does not deny justice, but chooses mercy and healing over bitterness.
This work includes letting go of grudges, seeking reconciliation, praying for those who have hurt us, and trusting that God's mercy is sufficient.
Practical ways to live this work:
Offering comfort brings consolation to those who suffer. This work reflects God's own compassion and brings His presence to those in distress.
From Scripture's call to comfort the sorrowful to the Church's tradition of spiritual consolation, this work addresses the deep suffering of the human heart with compassion and hope.
Comforting the afflicted includes being present to those who grieve, offering words of hope, praying with and for those who suffer, and pointing them toward God's love.
Practical ways to live this work:
Prayer is the most powerful work of mercy. Interceding for the living and the dead unites us in communion with all the faithful and draws down God's grace.
The Church has always believed in the power of prayer for the living and the faithful departed. Prayer for the dead, especially through the Mass, aids the souls in purgatory and demonstrates our belief in eternal life.
This work includes daily prayer for others, having Masses offered for the deceased, praying the Rosary for intentions, and making intercession a daily practice.
Practical ways to live this work:
Choose one work, learn its meaning, then take one concrete step this week.