Corporal Work of Mercy

I don't know why, but a story from our local ABC affiliate here in Philly had an effect:

Jewish and Christian prayers for the dead were recited at Lakeland Cemetery Monday morning for six people, 3 adults and 3 infants. They were not family members or friends in life, they are related only by their indigence. For up to a year they lay unclaimed in the Camden County morgue. Monday the county laid them to rest. Bruce Smith was a homeless man found dead in an abandoned house. Angel Roman was a drug addict found in a rooming house and Mary Cornish was an elderly woman who died of heart disease. The three infants were stillborn. All had identities, what they didn't have were relatives to claim and arrange their funerals, so they remained in the morgue....

One by one the adult caskets and tiny infant coffins were lowered into the ground. There were no flowers, no grieving families, just the sympathy of strangers who believe that even those who had little in life deserved a decent burial.

That's love, people.

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