Twenty-Sixth
Sunday af. Pentecost (33rd S
Ord Time)
Romans,
Chapter 3, Verse 21-31
21
But
now the righteousness of God has been
manifested apart from the law, though testified to by the law and the prophets,
22
the
righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction;
23
all
have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.
24 They are justified freely by his
grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus,
25
whom
God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood, to prove his
righteousness because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed, 26
through the forbearance of God—to prove his righteousness in the present time,
that he might be righteous and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 What occasion is there then for boasting? It is ruled
out. On what principle, that of works? No, rather on the principle of faith. 28 For we consider that a person is
justified by faith apart from works
of the law. 29 Does God belong to Jews alone?
Does he not belong to Gentiles, too? Yes, also to Gentiles,
30 for God is one and will justify
the circumcised on the basis of faith
and the uncircumcised through faith. 31
Are we then annulling the law by this faith?
Of course not! On the contrary, we are supporting
the law.
If we are faithful to God, we strive to circumcise the
heart and not the body. A true Jew is one who lives the covenant and avoids
those things that give a person over to the power of sin. Indeed, without
Christ Jew and Christian have no hope; for all sin. Christ gave us the power to
enter into a right relationship with God by faith and not by being a
goody-goody. All human beings have failed God and not measured up to their
potential glory. Christ has quite freely made it possible for all people to
regain a right relationship with God. God is not a bookkeeper; HE is a lender
giving the loan of righteousness and out of love we create an economy of love
with others; building the Kingdom of God.[1]
33st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus
said to his disciples:"In those days after that tribulation the sun will
be darkened,and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling
from the sky,and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."And then they
will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds' with great power and glory,and
then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds,from
the end of the earth to the end of the sky."Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is
near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is
near, at the gates. Amen, I say to you, this generation will not pass awayuntil
all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my
words will not pass away. "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither
the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE
FRANCIS
SECOND WORLD DAY OF THE POOR
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
18 November 2018
18 November 2018
1. “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him” (Ps 34:6).
The words of the Psalmist become our own whenever we are called to encounter
the different conditions of suffering and marginalization experienced by so many
of our brothers and sisters whom we are accustomed to label generically as “the
poor”. The Psalmist is not alien to suffering; quite the contrary. He has a
direct experience of poverty and yet transforms it into a song of praise and
thanksgiving to the Lord. Psalm 34 allows us today, surrounded as we are by
many different forms of poverty, to know those who are truly poor. It enables
us to open our eyes to them, to hear their cry and to recognize their needs. We
are told, in the first place, that the Lord listens to the poor who cry out to
him; he is good to those who seek refuge in him, whose hearts are broken by
sadness, loneliness and exclusion. The Lord listens to those who, trampled in
their dignity, still find the strength to look up to him for light and comfort.
He listens to those persecuted in the name of a false justice, oppressed by
policies unworthy of the name, and terrified by violence, yet know that God is
their Saviour. What emerges from this prayer is above all the sense of
abandonment and trust in a Father who can hear and understand. Along these same
lines, we can better appreciate the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. This experience, unique
and in many ways undeserved and inexpressible, makes us want to share it with
others, especially those who, like the Psalmist, are poor, rejected and
marginalized. No one should feel excluded from the Father’s love, especially in
a world that often presents wealth as the highest goal and encourages
self-centredness.
2. Psalm 34 uses three verbs to describe the poor man in his
relationship with God. First of all, “to cry”. Poverty cannot be summed up in a
word; it becomes a cry that rises to heaven and reaches God. What does the cry
of the poor express, if not their suffering and their solitude, their
disappointment and their hope? We can ask ourselves how their plea, which rises
to the presence of God, can fail to reach our own ears, or leave us cold and indifferent.
On this World Day of the Poor, we are called to make a serious
examination of conscience, to see if we are truly capable of hearing the cry of
the poor. To hear their voice, what we need is the silence of people who are
prepared to listen. If we speak too much ourselves, we will be unable to hear
them. At times I fear that many initiatives, meritorious and necessary in
themselves, are meant more to satisfy those who undertake them than to respond
to the real cry of the poor. When this is the case, the cry of the poor
resounds, but our reaction is inconsistent, and we become unable to empathize
with their condition. We are so trapped in a culture that induces us to look in
the mirror and pamper ourselves, that we think that an altruistic gesture is
enough, without the need to get directly involved.
3. The second verb is “to answer”. The Psalmist tells us that the
Lord does not only listen to the cry of the poor but responds. His answer, as
seen in the entire history of salvation, is to share lovingly in the lot of the
poor. So it was when Abram spoke to God of his desire for offspring, despite
the fact that he and his wife Sarah were old in years and had no children. So
too when Moses, in front of a bush that burned without being consumed, received
the revelation of God’s name and the mission to free his people from Egypt.
This was also the case during Israel’s wandering in the desert, in the grip of
hunger and thirst, and its falling into the worst kind of poverty, namely,
infidelity to the covenant and idolatry. God’s answer to the poor is always a
saving act that heals wounds of body and soul, restores justice and helps to
live life anew in dignity. God’s answer is also a summons to those who believe
in him to do likewise, within the limits of what is humanly possible. The World
Day of the Poor wishes to be a small answer that the Church throughout the
world gives to the poor of every kind and in every land, lest they think that
their cry has gone unheard. It may well be like a drop of water in the desert
of poverty, yet it can serve as a sign of sharing with those in need and enable
them to sense the active presence of a brother or a sister. The poor do not
need intermediaries, but the personal involvement of all those who hear their
cry. The concern of believers in their regard cannot be limited to a kind of
assistance – as useful and as providential as this may be in the beginning –
but requires a “loving attentiveness” (Evangelii Gaudium, 199) that honours the person
as such and seeks out his or her best interests.
4. The third verb is “to free”. In the Bible, the poor live in the
certainty that God intervenes on their behalf to restore their dignity. Poverty
is not something that anyone desires, but is caused by selfishness, pride,
greed and injustice. These are evils as old as the human race itself, but also
sins in which the innocent are caught up, with tragic effects at the level of
social life. God’s act of liberation is a saving act for those who lift up to
him their sorrow and distress. The bondage of poverty is shattered by the power
of God’s intervention. Many of the Psalms recount and celebrate this history of
salvation mirrored in the personal life of the poor: “For he has not despised
or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from
him, but has heard, when he cried to him”. The ability to see God’s face is a
sign of his friendship, his closeness and his salvation. “You have seen my
affliction, you have taken heed of my adversities… you have set my feet in a
broad place”. To offer the poor a “broad space” is to set them free from the
“snare of the fowler”; it is to free them from the trap hidden on their path,
so that they can move forward with serenity on the path of life. God’s
salvation is a hand held out to the poor, a hand that welcomes, protects and enables
them to experience the friendship they need. From this concrete and tangible
proximity, a genuine path of liberation emerges. “Each individual Christian and
every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and
promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society.
This demands that we be docile and attentive to the cry of the poor and to come
to their aid” (Evangelii gaudium, 187).
5. I find it moving to know that many poor people identify with
the blind beggar Bartimaeus mentioned by the evangelist Mark. Bartimaeus “was
sitting by the roadside to beg”; having heard that Jesus was passing by, “he
began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’”. “Many
rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more”. The Son
of God heard his plea and said: “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind
man said to him, “Master, let me receive my sight”. This Gospel story makes
visible what the Psalm proclaims as a promise. Bartimaeus is a poor person who
finds himself lacking things as essential as sight and the ability to work for
a living. How many people today feel in the same situation! Lack of basic means
of subsistence, marginalization due to a reduced capacity for work, various
forms of social enslavement, despite all our human progress… How many poor
people today are like Bartimaeus, sitting on the roadside and looking for
meaning in their lives! How many of them wonder why they have fallen so far and
how they can escape! They are waiting for someone to come up to them and say:
“Take heart; rise, he is calling you”. Sadly, the exact opposite often happens,
and the poor hear voices scolding them, telling them to be quiet and to put up
with their lot. These voices are harsh, often due to fear of the poor, who are
considered not only destitute but also a source of insecurity and unrest, an
unwelcome distraction from life as usual and needing to be rejected and kept
afar. We tend to create a distance between them and us, without realizing that
in this way we are distancing ourselves from the Lord Jesus, who does not
reject the poor, but calls them to himself and comforts them. The words of the
Prophet Isaiah telling believers how to conduct themselves are most apt in this
case. They are “to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the
yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke… to share bread with
the hungry and bring the homeless and poor into the house… to cover the naked”.
Such deeds allow sin to be forgiven and justice to take its course. They ensure
that when we cry to the Lord, he will answer and say: “Here I am!”.
6. The poor are the first to recognize God’s presence and to
testify to his closeness in their lives. God remains faithful to his promise;
and even in the darkness of the night, he does not withhold the warmth of his
love and consolation. However, for the poor to overcome their oppressive
situation, they need to sense the presence of brothers and sisters who are concerned
for them and, by opening the doors of their hearts and lives, make them feel
like friends and family. Only in this way can the poor discover “the saving
power at work in their lives” and “put them at the centre of the Church’s
pilgrim way” (Evangelii Gaudium, 198). On this World
Day, we are asked to fulfil the words of the Psalm: “The afflicted shall
eat and be satisfied”. We know that in the Temple of Jerusalem, after the rites
of sacrifice, a banquet was held. It was this experience that, in many dioceses
last year, enriched the celebration of the first World Day of the Poor.
Many people encountered the warmth of a home, the joy of a festive meal and the
solidarity of those who wished to sit together at table in simplicity and
fraternity. I would like this year’s, and all future World Days, to
be celebrated in a spirit of joy at the rediscovery of our capacity for
togetherness. Praying together as a community and sharing a meal on Sunday is
an experience that brings us back to the earliest Christian community,
described by the evangelist Luke in all its primitive simplicity: “They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread
and the prayers… And all who believed were together and had all things in
common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all,
as any had need”.
7. Countless initiatives are undertaken every day by the Christian
community in order to offer closeness and a helping hand in the face of the
many forms of poverty all around us. Often too, our cooperation with other
initiatives inspired not by faith but by human solidarity, make it possible for
us to provide help that otherwise we would have been unable to offer. The
realization that in the face of so much poverty our capacity for action is
limited, weak and insufficient, leads us to reach out to others so that,
through mutual cooperation, we can attain our goals all the more effectively.
We Christians are inspired by faith and by the imperative of charity, but we
can also acknowledge other forms of assistance and solidarity that aim in part
for the same goals, provided that we do not downplay our specific role, which
is to lead everyone to God and to holiness. Dialogue between different
experiences, and humility in offering our cooperation without seeking the
limelight, is a fitting and completely evangelical response that we can give. In
the service of the poor, there is no room for competition. Rather, we should
humbly recognize that the Spirit is the source of our actions that reveal God’s
closeness and his answer to our prayers. When we find ways of drawing near to
the poor, we know that the primacy belongs to God, who opens our eyes and
hearts to conversion. The poor do not need self-promoters, but a love that
knows how to remain hidden and not think about all the good it has been able to
do. At the centre must always be the Lord and the poor. Anyone desirous of
serving is an instrument in God’s hands, a means of manifesting his saving
presence. Saint Paul recalled this when he wrote to the Christians in Corinth
who competed for the more prestigious charisms: “The eye cannot say to the
hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need
of you’”. Paul makes an important point when he notes that the apparently
weaker parts of the body are in fact the most necessary, and that those “we
think less honourable we invest with the greater honour, and our unpresentable
parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not
require”. Paul offers the community a basic teaching about charisms, but also
about the attitude it should have, in the light of the Gospel, towards its
weaker and needier members. Far be it from Christ’s disciples to nurture
feelings of disdain or pity towards the poor. Instead, we are called to honour
the poor and to give them precedence, out of the conviction that they are a
true presence of Jesus in our midst. “As you did it to one of the least of
these my brethren, you did it to me”.
8. Here we can see how far our way of life must be from that of
the world, which praises, pursues and imitates the rich and powerful, while
neglecting the poor and deeming them useless and shameful. The words of the
Apostle Paul invite us to a fully evangelical solidarity with the weaker and
less gifted members of the body of Christ: “If one member suffers, all suffer
together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together”. In his Letter to
the Romans, Paul also tells us: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with
those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but
associate with the lowly”. This is the vocation of each of Christ’s followers;
the ideal for which we must constantly strive is ever greater conformity to the
“mind of Jesus Christ”.
9. Faith naturally inspires a message of hope. Often it is
precisely the poor who can break through our indifference, born of a worldly
and narrow view of life. The cry of the poor is also a cry of hope that reveals
the certainty of future liberation. This hope is grounded in the love of God,
who does not abandon those who put their trust in him. As Saint Teresa of Avila
writes in The Way of Perfection: “Poverty comprises many virtues.
It is a vast domain. I tell you, whoever despises all earthly goods is master
of them all”. It is in the measure in which we are able to discern authentic
good that we become rich before God and wise in our own eyes and in those of
others. It is truly so. To the extent that we come to understand the true
meaning of riches, we grow in humanity and become capable of sharing.
10. I invite my brother bishops, priests, and especially deacons,
who have received the laying on of hands for the service of the poor, as well
as religious and all those lay faithful – men and women – who in parishes,
associations and ecclesial movements make tangible the Church’s response to the
cry of the poor, to experience this World Day as a privileged
moment of new evangelization. The poor evangelize us and help us each day to
discover the beauty of the Gospel. Let us not squander this grace-filled
opportunity. On this day, may all of us feel that we are in debt to the poor,
because, in hands outstretched to one another, a salvific encounter can take
place to strengthen our faith, inspire our charity and enable our hope to
advance securely on our path towards the Lord who is to come.
Breaking
the cycle of poverty
Each
year you shall tithe all the produce of your seed that grows in the field; then in the place which the LORD, your God,
chooses as the dwelling place of his name you shall eat in his presence the
tithe of your grain, wine and oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and
flock, that you may learn always to fear the LORD, your God.
God wants you to celebrate life; you shall eat in his
presence the tithe of your produce. Imagine what the world would be like if
everyone did this! If we all took time off with a tenth of the money we made to
celebrate with God and our family and friends together. What a different world
it would be. Imagine all the celebrations you would attend. Maybe we should all
strive to take a 40-day retreat/celebration. Save your money for this! What is
on your bucket list; perhaps the Lord wants you and me to cross off some of
those things in His presence. If I were young again this is how I would budget:
10% for His Presence (30 to 40 days’ vacation); 10% for charity/church; 10%
savings and live off the 70 percent; that is after the government takes their
50%. Imagine if there was a fair tax……. that bequeathed everyone $5000 above
the poverty level for a family of 4 of $29,420 to
invest. A good resource for financial advice is a book entitled, “The
Richest Man in Babylon”[2]
"Read
these counsels slowly. Pause to meditate on these thoughts. They are things
that I whisper in your ear-confiding them-as a friend, as a brother, as a
father. And they are being heard by God. I won't tell you anything new. I will
only stir your memory, so that some thought will arise and strike you; and so
you will better your life and set out along ways of prayer and of Love. And in
the end you will be a more worthy soul."
To defend his purity, Saint Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow,
Saint Benedict threw himself into a thorn bush, Saint Bernard plunged into an
icy pond... You..., what have you done?
Daily Devotions
[1]The Collegeville Bible Commentary
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_%28book%29
[3]http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/the_way-point-1.htm
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