Reflection
It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed toward “having” rather than “being” and which wants to have more not in order to be more, but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself. It is therefore necessary to create lifestyles in which the quest for truth, beauty and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments. In this regard, it is not a matter of the duty of charity alone, that is, the duty to give from one’s abundance and sometimes even out of one’s needs in order to provide what is essential for the life of a poor person.
Pope John Paul II
Prayer
Lord, help me to see beyond my own comfort to the needs of others.
Action
How often am I seduced by the ads of this consumer driven society? Do I consider a better use of my abundance than the extra latest or new item?
Suggested Reading
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not
clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
Matthew 25:41-46
There is much that we can do to benefit the poor, the needy and those who suffer, and to favor justice, promote reconciliation and build peace.
Pope Francis
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
Mother Teresa
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Mahatma Gandhi
The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.
Jimmy Carter
No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“When we encounter suffering, we can either lean in or look away. When love wins the day, looking away is never an option — because love always leans in.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
Dwight D. Eisenhower