WE ARE ALL POOR

DeceMBER 29, 2007

Jesus had a special love for the poor and broken. He identified with them personally, and made them his top priority.

This teaching presents a special problem for us in United States because most of us don't consider ourselves poor. Even those who are poor by American standards are wealthy in comparison with peoples elsewhere.

Does this mean that God has no special place in his heart for us because we are not materially destitute?

It's important to understand that we are all, in fact, poor in some way, and Jesus makes us his priority according to the kind of poverty we experience. There is economic, physical, psychological, and spiritual poverty.

Much of the world is economically impoverished. Tragic as this is, economic poverty is the easiest to alleviate, and many people, Christians included, are industriously at work doing that. More and more Christians are accepting the call to work for justice and oppose the economic, social and political systems that keep people impoverished. Other kinds of poverty, however, are not so easily alleviated.

Physical poverty refers to bodily impairments caused by such things as sickness, accidents, handicaps of birth or of aging. The Gospels recount many stories of Jesus encountering and healing those who suffered physical poverty. Jesus committed himself and his Church to be present and minister to those suffering from physical poverty.

Psychological poverty is also widespread today. Life's fast pace, the pressures to succeed and to balance work and family life, and other social ills drive people to emotional upheaval and illness. In a world where money, power, and sex take precedence over justice, peace, and love, people's deepest needs for affection, security, happiness, and meaning often go unattended. Many people secretly feel like failures. A sort of gnawing loneliness paralyzes them. Everything seems boring and meaningless, and they have no worthwhile goals. They suffer burnout or mental/emotional exhaustion. They are psychologically poor.

The most serious poverty -- one that is rampant in our society -- is spiritual poverty. The spiritually poor lack the peace and fulfillment that can come only from a direct relationship with God. The deepest spiritual poverty is sin. By turning away from God through serious sin, people cut themselves off from the deepest wellsprings of grace and meaning. Sins committed years ago often continue to gnaw at people. Failing to appreciate Jesus' good news of forgiveness, they live in quiet desperation.

Yet, because God has created us for eternal communion with him, our spiritual yearning for him never ceases, nor does our yearning for fulfillment in this life. It is these unending yearnings and unfulfilled desires and needs that constitute our condition of poverty.

Jesus can identify with our poverty. He came as a poor infant in an out-of-the-way place. He lived poor and died poor. He was also physically poor, and suffered in his body from deprivation of rest, food, and comfort. "The birds have nests and the foxes have lairs", he said, "but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."

He was psychologically poor, and suffered the anguish of being misunderstood, lied about, and rejected by his own people. In the end, he suffered betrayal by a close friend, and abandonment by his followers. When he was crucified, he even felt abandoned by God. Perhaps his greatest poverty was that, in spite of the tremendous love he gave, he died without receiving love or consolation.

So it is that Jesus understands our poverty and need.

The Church's conviction of faith is that our poverty can prepare us to better appreciate the riches of the life and love God offers us. The only way to find our heart's contentment is to seek it in God, and to cease searching for it in all things that are not of God. Here is what the Apostle Paul wrote:

"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love God... If God is for us, who can be against us? Is it possible that he who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for the sake of us all will not grant us all things besides? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Trial, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As scripture says "For your sake we are being slain all the day long; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered." Yet in all this we are more than conquerors because of him who has loved us. For I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord" (Rom 8:28-39).

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 07-Jan-2008 8:26 sitemap