Parable Of Woman With Two Coins

"As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.  'Truly I tell you,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others.  All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.'" [1]

Quoted above is the parable of a widow with two small coins.  She gave all  that she had to live on.  In other words, she had no more means to continue living, to pay for shelter, to purchase food and to pay for medication when she needs some [2].  In short, she had given up everything she had in order to sustain her life and it would not be long before she would die.

This is a parable that no Catholic priest would dare to touch because it undercuts the Church's most fundamental teaching which is to give to the poor.  This widow was poor.  That is clear.  She had no husband to take care of her (she was a widow) and she did not have a job (I do not believe in those days women had jobs that pay, those women who were not engaged in the world's oldest profession).  And what did Jesus do?  He observed.  He did not intervene by showering her with gold nuggets, or by asking His disciples to feed her, to wash her clothes, to give her a place to bathe and to give her shelter for as long as she lived. 

Why did Jesus not help her when He could easily have with a miracle?  He did not because He did not want to denigrate Her love for God that she expressed by her putting her two coins into the temple treasury.  By giving up her last coins, she had expressed an irrevocable willingness to sacrifice her life for the love of God.  Why did putting coins into the temple treasury represent such a sacrifice?  Metaphorically speaking, the temple's treasury has only one treasure: God, and it was to God that she had given her last two coins, the last hours of her life.

No Catholic church today, and certainly not the Vatican, wants a donation from this woman, not because she was poor and would take pity on her, but because she was not rich enough to give them enough support to their lifestyles.  Her two lousy coins are diddly squat to them and they could care less about her sacrifice.  But not Jesus.  Jesus saw immediately her love for God, a love so great that she would give her life for, a love that foreshadowed Christ's love for His Father that ultimately led Jesus to His own death on the Cross.

Hypocrites from the pope down ought to face the fact that they have no right to tell anyone to give to the poor until they themselves have become poor, and are willing to give up their lives (not lifestyles) for the love of God as did the widow who gave up her two coins, her means to life, in essence her life, for her love of God.




[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+21:1-4
[2] http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/medicine-in-the-ancient-world/

The Antipodes: Holy Poverty And Economic Poverty

Holy poverty and economic poverty are in economic terms the same poverty but they are situated as far apart from each other as the mind can imagine.

Holy poverty is by choice.  The best example is San Francesco d'Assisi.  He was the decadent son of a wealthy merchant who chose to become poor and lived on alms.  He became a saint by following the footsteps of Christ.  While leading his life of holy poverty, he was granted the ability to perform miracles and was given the stigmata. [1]

By contrast, economic poverty is a result of circumstance either of birth or of societal ills.  I have not yet come across the efficient allocation of poverty where the economically poor are truly holy.  To put it bluntly and perhaps cruelly, it would be simplest, and most efficient, for the poor to choose to stay poor and live a saintly life of holy poverty.  That is not the case, however.

The one exception I know is Sainte Bernadette Soubirous who lived in abject poverty with her parents and siblings, and whose nature was kind and courteous. [2]  She would become the saint who would give the world the miraculous healing water of Lourdes after encountering the Blessed Virgin Mary and doing exactly as She instructed.  The Lord has not given us too many saints like Bernadette.

If the poor in this world would choose to live in holy poverty like San Francesco d'Assisi or without envy like Sainte Bernadette Soubirous, there may not be another war.  Those who are poor have not made such choices, but if they did choose to follow Christ, they could do it right away without having to sell any of their possessions (they have none). [3]

The poor are not to blame.  As sinners, the poor, like everyone other sinner, are vulnerable to Satan's temptation.  Before the poor, Satan has placed the fruit of envy and before the wealthy, the fruit of greed.  Just like our first parents, Adam and Eve, we have eaten what we do not have to.

Most of us sinners, whether wealthy or poor, have chosen not to live in holy poverty and follow Christ like San Francesco d'Assisi.  We have, under the supervision and with the support of Satan, created a divide that can never be closed, a scale of justice that will never be in balance. [4]

In dealing with inequality, all Satan wants us to do, including the priests and those in charge of the Vatican, is to be hypocrites, to pay lip service to social justice, like writing a catechism on the topic [5], playing politics with the poor by trading false promises for power or blogging about poverty online, pointing our fingers at every other secular entity or government or every other religious group except ourselves.

In the final analysis, we who have not chosen the path of Christ are all to a certain extent, greater or smaller, living in unholy poverty (spiritual, economic or both) that is antipodal to Holy poverty.




[1] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm
[2] http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/bernadette-soubirious.html
[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A21&version=NIV; http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A22; and http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10%3A21&version=ESV
[4] "We" in the sentence include the rich and powerful whose greed makes them want to exploit sadistically the earth's resources and those inferior to them as well as the powerless paupers whose refusal to be productive (referring to charitable or for-profit productivity and not procreative productivity--that they excel in with abandon) makes them envious, bitter, angry and vengeful.  Without prayer, we would swirl deeper and deeper into the vortex of depravity, the dark hole of hopelessness that Satan designed to trap people's souls during life so they can be Hell-bound after death.
[5] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c2a3.htm            

Thoughts On God, Sunday, June 10, 2012 - Poverty Of A Contemplative

Yesterday I happened upon a documentary on a Benedictine Abbey in Tulsa, OK, Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey [1], on EWTN, as I did a some time ago a documentary on another Benedictine Abbey in Berry, France, Fontgombault Abbey, also on EWTN [2].  As it turned out, Clear Creek Abbey was founded in 1999 by Notre-Dame de Fontgombault.

The 1,200 acre property was purchased in 1999 by Abbot Forgeot [1].  "Clear Creek runs through the property which gives it its name." [3]  The property, the farm animals, the buildings and all that go into them together with utilities cost money and if I remember correctly over $10 million, but the range could be as high as $25 million based on the 2008 Excellence In Construction Award given to the Associated Builders and Contractors of Oklahoma of Manhattan Construction [4].

From what I remember, Benedictines do take the vow of poverty but owning property and adding to it improvements in excess of $10 million is not exactly poverty by any stretch of the imagination.  But then it was explained by a Benedictine monk at Clear Creek that the Benedictine philosophy is to own as much as possible and offer it to God while none of the monks at the monastery individually owns anything.  And thus, I suppose, sufficiently satisfies the vow of poverty.

Of course, one can argue whichever way one chooses and find agreement or fault with that kind of reasoning.  I happen to be in total agreement.  If the contemplatives' sole purpose in life is to pray to and be in communion with God, they ought to have what God provides to them in return, abundance and serenity.


[1] http://www.clearcreekmonks.org/index.html
[2] Confession:  I watch a lot of EWTN on TV in bed because it relaxes me and puts me to sleep, but I never know what's on and when.  I just turn it on, like taking an Advil, when I need it.  Neither of these programs, however, put me to sleep.  I was captivated by the life of these Benedictine comtemplatives -- I had, after all, contemplated in joining a monastery, perhaps because of my nature, a thinker, but not because I went to a high school run by Benedictine monks since I saw so much politics and knew a few monks that I thought were not all that holy although a majority of them I thought were extraordinary and I learned many life lessons from them.  The Benedictine monks at my high school were not contemplatives -- they work, they teach and they pray too, but not as often as do the comtemplatives.  I did not know about contemplatives.  I would have been drawn to it.  I still am in a way but I am too old now, I think, to become one -- maybe not.  We'll see.
[3] http://pryordailytimes.com/local/x1750829472/Christmas-at-Clear-Creek-Abbey
[4] http://www.manhattanconstructiongroup.com/manhattan-construction/recognition/2008-2

Poverty & Redistributing Wealth

Pope Benedict XVI Wants What?

This is truly funny for me. No sooner than just a few days ago when I posted an entry on poverty, this headline: “Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution” shows up at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/pope-benedict-wealth-distribution_n_1154798.html?icid=maing-grid7|maing7|dl1|sec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D121064. The first three paragraphs read: “VATICAN CITY (RNS) Noting a ‘rising sense of frustration’ at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires ‘adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth.’

"The pope's words appeared in his message for the World Day of Peace 2012, released on Friday (Dec. 16) at the Vatican.

"The message laments that ‘some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity.’" Ibid.

Perhaps the Pope himself is detached from the core of Catholicism and in desperate need of continuing education on the vow of poverty, Francis of Assisi, Holy Poverty and religious hypocrisy.

Holy Poverty & Avarice

I have wanted to write about poverty for quite some time but after reading the passage quoted below, I no longer feel the need to for the subject had already been written on and far more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could.

The topic of poverty is particularly apropos during the Christmas season when we are being reminded of those who are poor and deserve to have the things they cannot afford. While we must not forget about those who are suffering financially, it is also important to realize that society is continually brainwashing us into believing falsely that satisfaction or happiness can be had by possession of new toys or the latest electronic gadgets and that sin and guilt can be washed away by donations.

Below is an excerpt from “The Evening Sermon on Saint Francis Preached at Paris, October 4, 1262” by Saint Bonaventure:

“As the heavens are arranged in spheres of high, higher, and highest heavens, so there is a poverty borne in patience that is good, a poverty that is desired and longed for which is better, and poverty embraced with joy in which a person glories and rejoices, which is best of all. Poverty, therefore, is the reason why a person can be likened to the heavens, because it leads to the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poverty excludes those who do not love it, or who malign it, from the kingdom of heaven, as Scripture says: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, that is, for a rich man who has set his heart on riches and placed his trust in them. Avarice drags a person down because those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. Take note that avarice casts a person into the depths. Poverty, on the other hand, uplifts a person to the state of heavenly life and, above all, that poverty in which a person glorifies and rejoices.” Emphasis original.




Bibliography:

Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder. Pages 718, 722. New York: New York City Press, 2000.