Listen to My Son in whom I am well pleased (Mt. 3:17).
I am listening within a new life experience to the Master’s Voice in the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church amidst the life of the economically weak and destitute in Sapang Palay. I have entered my third month living with these good people who are also my brothers and sisters “In Christ” no matter their life activity and meaning of life.
Fact: The goods of the earth come from the abundant generosity of God.
God’s goodness to us places rights and responsibilities upon our person to act in right relationship toward God, our Families, and our Neighbor, whoever or whatever God, we, or they deem themselves to be.
Fact: The life and dignity of the human person stand supreme in the Church’s teaching.
Fact: In many predominately Christian nations many human persons worldwide are searching for to drink the clean drop of life-sustaining water and the bodily nourishment of a decent meal among the political and financial corruption of its Christian leaders.
Fact: Family, Community, and a Faith filled Mutual Co-operation with the rest of humanity is essential to our right living in God’s world.
Fact: Human persons worldwide are scavenging for the leftovers of our Christian and others’ husbandry of the earth's natural production of food and water, and its other natural resources?
Husbandry is a word I seldom hear in conversation; some persons might deem it politically incorrect to use it. The word "Husbandry" is used to describe the right care, cultivation, and breeding of crops and animals. The word can also be used to describe our conservation of the world's natural resources. A Christian’s care for the world and all it holds enhances the life and wellbeing of all of God’s creation.
Through my being a contributing member of the Royal Dublin Society, a philanthropic organization which endeavors to promote and maintain the cultural and economic wellbeing of the Irish people I can help them to achieve their goal.
Fact: Agriculture and its husbandry play an essential role in the work of the RDS in providing the best quality food for the people it serves. God the Father is a farmer (in metaphor) in that he keeps all living things in existence through His providential care. The means of toiling the earth to produce its good fruit is a human right of all its citizens.
I am worshipping, believing, and Baptized Catholic who is called by Jesus and the Church to have a preferential option for the poor, and especially the poor of my blood and Christian Family.
Fact: The story of Lazarus and the rich man still speaks of the cruelty and injustice experienced by so many baptized and unbaptized persons in nations where the leaders and people profess to live by Christian values.
Fact: God gives life to the rich and the poor of the world’s natural wealth.
Fact: The rich man and Lazarus are both sons of God.
Fact: Neither Lazarus or the rich man live out of the fullness of their human dignity; the rich man by choice, Lazarus because the selfishness of the world forces him to live in extreme poverty. Poverty does not disgrace human dignity; greed does.
Fact: A poor persons searching for the crumbs of our bounty denies their person to sit at the table of plenty and to gaze upon its God-given wonder. The dignity of human work and the ability for every person to provide for their families is essential to right husbandry of the world’s God-given gifts of nature.
Fact: Some economically weak families forage for the unwanted spoils of the overfed and overindulgent Christians in the slums of the earth.
Fact: The world is laden with the goods of the earth.
Fact: Many persons of our universal family are left without one bowl of rice from its bounty to keep themselves alive.
Fact: The economically weak are left destitute by the selfish greed of those who legitimately or not multiply their wealth for their selfish end.
Fact: Some wealthy people regard it as a financial victory to avoid tax payments upon their financial wealth. Avoidance is legal; but is it just?
Fact: God demands human justice.
Fact: God recognizes the selfishness of our human state when we ignore its devastating effects on the economically weak.
Fact: Selfishness has no place in the just care of the world's natural and life-sustaining resources.
Fact: The Kingdom of God reverses the order of the world's notion of justice and truth. "The Poor shall inherit the earth" (Mt 5:5).
Fact: The carefulness of God the Father for His earthly creation causes Him at the appointed time to send His eternal son to shepherd the world and all it holds in the fullness of the Paraclete's spirit of goodness. (Paraclete: the second teacher of the unknowingness of God as revealed in Christ Jesus).
Fact: God calls the rich and the poor to right relationship with the triune persons of the Godhead, with self, neighbor and all creation.
The story of Lazarus and the rich man teaches us of the cruelty and injustice experienced by so many human persons today.
Fact: The denial or non-funding of a sick or economically weak person's right to a good and healthy life removes them from the table of a sacred and life enhancing natural plenteousness, not by God’s choice but ours.
Fact: No sick, or economically weak person should be abandoned to forage for the unwanted and abandoned spoils of the overfed and over indulgent.
Fact: No sick person should be forced into debt or be made to rely solely on the generosity of one other person to regain and maintain good health. The health and physical well-being of the sick is a communal responsibility.
In the story of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus does not give the selfish person, the rich man a place at the Heavenly feast. Jesus challenges the rich man’s behavior toward the poor when he says that the rich man will find himself with no everlasting life-giving drop of water to sustain the goodness of his human existence after death.
Fact: The fruits of the grace of Baptism will be taken from the selfish and overly indulgent Christian rich man and given to those whom God chooses worthy. The near starving, economically weak Lazarus is found worthy in the eyes of the “Godman,” Jesus Christ. After human death, Lazarus rests in the bosom of Abraham until the day of resurrection. Where will I sleep? With God’s grace in the heart of Jesus.
Fact: The selfish soul, the non-giving and non-sharing person will make themselves void of God's bountiful goodness. A Christian caring soul shares in the virtue of God's loving goodness gifted it at the beginning of creation and graced anew to them in Baptism.
Two Thousand Years after the coming of Christ Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit many of the economically weak are left destitute by the selfish greed of those who legitimately or otherwise multiply their wealth for their selfish world power objectives.
Jesus does not speak of how the rich man made his wealth. What the rich do with their excess wealth when confronted with the tremendous financial poverty of many of God's children is questioned by Jesus.
Fact: The Sacred Scriptures speak of the need to apply a divine truth to the just requirements of the economically weak. The point is that the financially weak need the help of the rich to sustain their life.
Fact: The Godman, Jesus Christ, in His teaching gives an identifying name to the poor man but not to the rich man. God recognizes the selfishness of our human state when we ignore its devastating effects on the economically weak. Jesus acknowledges the chasm of human poverty and spiritual attainment between Lazarus and the rich man.
Lazarus is an upright man and has a place in Heaven. God calls the rich and the poor to right relationship with the triune persons of the Godhead, with self, neighbor and all creation. The living of the proper relationship is in the justice and peace of God. The "Eye of the needle" that Jesus speaks of has an eternal significance that no Christian should ignore.
The hungry and the one who feeds them will feast and serve at the Heavenly banquet.
The Kingdom of God reverses the order of the world's notion of justice and truth. "The Poor shall inherit the earth" (Mt 5:5).
The "Eye of the needle" has an eternal significance that no Christian should ignore.
Humanity is called to love God with all our soul, and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as oneself (Mt 22:35-40).
Our living in right relationship is when we unite through God’s grace our human loving to the justice and peace of God.
By God’s grace, Christians can achieve and lasting solidarity in friendship with the peoples of all races, with persons of different religious beliefs and with those of no religion to accomplish the goal of raising all created life to what we believe it to be. The real dignity our being sons and daughters of God equal in life and equal in sharing the life-giving gifts of God’s creation.
“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth” (Gen 1:1). In the end, all is “In Christ,” and Christ Jesus shares the life of God with us all.