Not a Poor Excuse

Four years ago I reflected on the part we were playing in Mexico.  Caring for the poor was one of those reasons: “While Mexico has an influential upper class and a growing middle class, God has also put it into our hearts to proclaim good news to the poor.  We believe that when we spend ourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed our light will rise in the darkness.”  (Matthew 11:4-5; Isaiah 58:10-11)

Today I was reminded of the “advantages” of being poor by Monika Hellwig:

1.   The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.

2.   The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their interdependence with one another.

3.   The poor rest their security not on things but on people.

4.   The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy.

5.   The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation.

6.   The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.

7.   The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependence.

8.   The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.

9.   When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.

10.  The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.