Happy are the Poor

Reflection on Luck 6:17. 20-26

Before and during the time of Jesus, the popular wisdom in Israel was that wealth, prosperity was a blessing, a clear sign of divine approval. On the contrary, poverty, adversity was a curse, a sign of disfavour in the sight of God. That kind of thinking endured in spite of its being contradicted by the Book of Job in the Old Testament.

When Jesus came along, he stood the received wisdom on its head. He said that the poor were in fact blessed, happy. The reason for that was that the kingdom of God was theirs. The hungry, those who mourned, those who wept, and those who suffered persecution were all equally blessed, happy. By contrast, the rich, those who had their fill, those who were laughing, and those whom the world spoke well about were all in trouble. Jesus said, "Alas!" to them.

There is no particular virtue in being poor, neither is there any inherent evil in being rich. Both the poor and the rich can and do go to heaven, just as both also can and do go to hell. However, age-old experience has taught that people who are poor or deprived often tend to look up to God for their sufficiency. They tend to be deeply religious. By contrast, a lot of people who are rich consider themselves self-sufficient. They believe or they behave as if they had little use for God in their lives. There are several stories in the Gospels that describe the attitude of the self-sufficient rich man. One is the story of the "Rich Young Man" who would not leave everything to follow Jesus, because "he was a man of great wealth" (Mark 10: 17-22). Another is the story of the "Rich Fool" who did not include God in his plans for the future (Luke 12: 16­21). Yet another is the story of the "Rich Man" who went to a place of torment after death because he failed to give a crumb of food to the poor man Lazarus while on earth (Luke 16: 19-31).

If we are poor now, and we work hard to become rich, we do no wrong. If we are rich now, and we work hard to remain so, we do no wrong either. There is just one thing, though: whether we become rich in the future or we are already rich now, must remember to always subordinate our wealth to God. We must never lose sight of the fact that our sufficiency is in him alone, not in any of our possessions, however much they may be. That is something that comes very easier to people who are poor than those who are rich. That is why the poor are “happy”, “blessed”, and it is “alas” to the rich!

Let Go, and Let God

Reflection Luke 5:1-11

Simon Peter and his companions, Andrew, James and John, were professional fishermen. They must have been fishing in the same lake Gennesaret for years. They knew that the best time to catch fish was at night. That was exactly what they had tried to do all night. But they caught nothing.

Then a carpenter came along, a man who knew nothing about fishing. He told them to payout their nets in broad daylight. The fishermen had their doubts. They knew that it was a mission impossible. But they were polite people. They did not want to be disrespectful or rude to Jesus. So, out of respect for him, they paid out their nets. The result was a miracle. They caught enough fish to sink their two boats. Immediately, they knew that the man in the boat with them was not a mere man. Simon Peter called him "Lord'~ and said "Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man."

That is the difference between doing it yourself, and letting God do it with you. Until Jesus intervened, the fishermen were trying to do it on their own. They drew a blank; they caught nothing. The moment Jesus stepped in, a miracle happened.

It is like that with us. We have a project. We know everything about it; it is our field; we are experts in it. We have the resources: money, materials. But we are not making it. We are working at it day and night. Still we are not making it. What are we not doing right? Maybe we are trying to do it on our own, like the fishermen fishing all night on their own without success.

Has it occurred to you to hand that project over to God? Bring God into it. Put it into prayer, have Mass offered, ask your family, friends and fellow parishioners to help you in praying for the success of your project. You are likely to end up with what theologians call a "religious experience", like Simon Peter's, and find yourself saying, "Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man (or woman)."

So, why not let Go, and let God?

Value What You Have

Reflection on Luke 4:21-30


"Familiarity breeds contempt." That was what Jesus experienced when he paid a visit to his hometown, Nazareth. His townspeople knew him very well. He had grown up among them. They knew his mother and foster father. Both were simple, maybe even rather poor people. While growing up, Jesus had learnt the carpenter's trade. Then he left home at about the age of 30, only to now return trying to teach people about God and claiming to be able to perform miraculous feats. The people were not impressed. They must have wondered what Jesus, the carpenter, was trying to prove. "Who does he think he is? Bo! Let him go and sit down."

Jesus must have been upset at their attitude. Everywhere he had been before then: Capernaum, Cana, Bethsaida, even Jerusalem- people had accepted him -most people, at least. But here in his own hometown, among his own people, his kith and kin, hardly anybody would take him seriously. He• expressed his disappointment with the now famous statement: " ... no prophet is ever accepted in his own country"; or, in the more common version, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own country.”

Familiarity can indeed breed contempt. That is true of persons ("prophets"). It is also true of institutions, customs and traditions. Take the Church, for instance, the Catholic Church. Some people have been Catholics all their lives. They were born into Catholic families, baptised, confirmed, married in church, and so on. They were brought up on the various Catholic devotions and liturgical practices: Holy Mass and Holy Communion, maybe on a daily basis, Benediction, weekly Confession, daily Rosary, Legion of Mary, Block Rosary Crusade; and so on. If they are not careful, their very familiarity with these sacred things can lead to contempt. They can begin to take them for granted, not seriously any more. They will go to Mass out of sheer routine, receive Holy Communion without adequate preparation and no thanksgiving afterwards, go to confession without real repentance and a firm resolve to quit sinning, they will recite the rosary without really praying it. The result IS that none of those exercises will bring them any real spiritual benefits.

Some others will lose interest in their own Catholic devotions and practices and become fascinated with the way other churches do their things. That is the situation when people begin to value prayer meetings and revivals more than the Mass, when they abandon the Catholic Hymn Book in favour of choruses, some quite meaningless, when they begin to cast aspersions on the Rosary and even the person of our Blessed Mother. That is the extreme of familiarity breeding contempt. But familiarity need not breed contempt. It can and should rather breed better appreciation and love of what is ours. Familiarity between husband and wife should not breed contempt; neither should familiarity between parents and their children, between bosom friends, even between an employer and his employee. That is what should happen where our own . Catholic devotions and liturgical practices are concerned. We should appreciate them, cherish them, treasure them, seek to know and understand them better, and teach them to our children and youths. They have nourished the spiritual lives of countless generations of Catholics for two millennia. They can still do the same for countless more generations of Catholics for all the millennia yet to come. <>