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With Your Rule
We Can't Saturate Ourselves
"If we're living the gospel, we don't get every need, every help, every preference, every luxury met. If we don't deny ourselves, we're not living in an awareness of the rest of the world and the situation of the people around and beyond our neighborhood... There [exists] a world of not having enough, that lacks the basics. We reinforce our blindness when we buy and accumulate what we don't need, what isn't particularly helpful, what should be occasional. Luxury is [meant to be] an occasional boon, not a constant indulgence...
"In examining our needs in the light of the gospel, we find this: if you have all of your needs met, all of [what] helps [you] met, most of your preferences met and most of your luxuries met, you are not living a gospel life. You are blind to the real world, especially the poor.
"We can't saturate ourselves with what other people need for basics and still be living a gospel life. We never really heard that passage "If somebody has no coat, give him yours and your shirt as well." We didn't really hear those messages if we fulfill every eating desire. It doesn't take long or seem hard to understand this process, but you may find some real emotional blocks as you try to carry it out, especially in this area of food. Mostly in our society, we eat too much."
Sr. Jose Hobday in "Simple Living: The Path to Joy and Freedom", Continuum Publishing Company, NY, 1999, p33
posted by Holly at 12:08 PM
1 Comments:
Rice prices have risen 70% around the world in a mere 6 weeks. Wheat prices more than doubled in 4 weeks. Oil prices continue to climb. We think we have it bad. Poor people are suffering bad. A world aid agency said today that if they dont' receive massive money in the next two weeks, they will either have to cut people from their aid list, or reduce rations. How do you cut back on subsistence rations?
Sr Jose gives us a jolt with her words, yet she is correct. If we have everything we truly need to survive and be healthy, plus we also have everything that is helfpul to us, AND we have most things we prefer, AND on top of that we have much that we don't need, use, like or want - merely because we have such a bad habit of affluent accumulation (a cluttered home is a good sign of this!) - then we are , quite simply, out of tune with the gospel and our Christian witness suffers horribly from a lack of authenticity. Our bulging waistlines and fatty chins also belie our affluence.
I think its' time for Christians to become slim again - not due to the latest fad diet, but because we are lessening our eating in solidarity with the rest of the world - the poor. We cannot be like the rich man who had the poor Lazarus crying outside his door, and the rich man remained oblivious. Note the fate of that rich man in the scripture passage...
Our homes - get rid of what we do not need, what we do not use, what we do not want. Give it away. Help others. And bring to our lives a simplicity that allows us to open our hearts to God instead of 'deal' with all our stuff.
And when we go to buy - ask - do I need it? Would it be helpful? These two are good. For the "Do I like it? - buy some only if you are already giving adequately to the poor. But for the rest - the mere accumulation of more stuff - stop - put the money in a separate section of your wallet and GIVE IT TO THE POOR. We can give from our own sacrifice to help others. I believe the Gospel is demanding this of us, right now, in this time in history.
Now is the time. The world is in a crisis. If we as Christians don't respond, who will? And what about our Christian credibility? What are we saying about God - as a witness to atheism, if we refuse to give, focused instead on our own satiation? We further the atheistic complaint that God can't exist because he permits suffering in the world. We become, as the Church says in Gaudium et Spes, a real reason why atheists can't believe...
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