“That which we call a rose,” Juliet laments, “by any other word would smell as sweet.” She knows Romeo’s heart and knows that it is only for his name that her own family rejects him, and only because of his name they will not even listen to her plea on his behalf. His name, of course, was associated with a long feud between families, but in a similar way, all names can affect how people see us. We can’t really control our given names – at least not easily – but we can be thoughtful about the names we use to describe others, so as not to negatively affect how even we see them.

In social work, the common term for the people being helped is “client,” but in the Society’s work, this would be precisely the wrong word, no more accurate than calling them “patients” or “customers.” Additionally, because our work may be fairly described as “social work adjacent,” using this term gives the wrong impression not only about the neighbor, but about us. It places us in a position of power, and the neighbor as one who merely receives services.

On the very first home visits, the young men delivered food and firewood to the poor in their neighborhood, but that was never truly the purpose. The bread and the firewood helped alleviate some deprivation, but it was the love, in imitation of Jesus, that they truly sought to share. It was never about the firewood, and we are not “mere social workers.”

Our Rule calls us to form “relationships based on trust and friendship” with all those we serve, and to “understand them as we would a brother or sister.” [Rule, Part I, 1.9] Most of us have friends, brothers, or sisters, and no matter how desperate their circumstances, if they ask us for help, they do not become clients. It would never occur to us to use that term, not because there is anything inherently wrong with it, but because it doesn’t accurately describe our friends or, perhaps more importantly, ourselves.

However much Juliet may have wished it were not so, there is a great deal in a name. “Friend,” “neighbor,” “brother,” and “sister” are not euphemisms; they describe not only those we serve, but our relationship with them. You will search in vain through all the pages of our Rule, our Manual, and Holy Scripture to find the word “client,” but you need read no further than the Greatest Commandment to know that we are called to love our neighbor.

Clinical or bureaucratic terms like “client” or “NIN” or “FIN” are not the names we use to describe friends and neighbors, much less the names we use to describe the one we see in the poor, the one who told us we would find him there, the one who visited us in our home, the one who bore the name that is above every name.

Contemplate

Do I always keep the relationship with the neighbor first in my mind, my heart, and my language?

By Timothy Williams,
Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development
Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA.