Reaching out to the oppressed is touching God
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By: Father Shay Cullen
The age-old question that bothers the old more than the young is how can one be worthy of eternal life. I was asked by many, just like the rich young man in the Gospel who asked that. Jesus told him to go sell all he has and give it to the poor and follow Him.
Loving and sharing with others to ease their pain is the only road to happiness in this world and a passport to the next. So each of us has to share our worldly goods with those who have none. Not that we have to impoverish ourselves but to lift others out that horrible state unworthy of human dignity.
This happens to be the heart of the Christianity we who have must make it possible that the poor can lift themselves out of the pit of darkness into the light of dignity and self-sufficiency.
Wealth brings it's own problems and sadness. One of them is that it distracts mightily from the spiritual nature of the human person and generates not gratitude and generosity but greed and selfishness. The wealthy serve only themselves, their families and their masters - the money moguls of mammon. They lack the love change an unjust society and help the poor and create a society that has equality and justice for all.
Instead of giving us the gift of being able to share with others and in need and be an instrument of God's love on earth we can become the cruel cause of more hardship and poverty. The gospel story of the rich man and the beggar dying at his gate is one of the most powerful images of the barrier separating rich and poor. The only creatures that had compassion were the dogs that came to lick and heal his sores and ease the pain. The rich man wouldn't give even the crumbs that fell from his table. Apathy and indifference to suffering and injustice is the greatest sin of all.
That's what greed does it separates us for the Love of God, the poor and the truth of human failings. We might think we are above all that squalor of human misery and don't need to think about it. That will plunge us into the abyss of unhappiness and an unfilled life. At the end when we face death can we truly say we have met God in the poor? Why else would God send his Son in human form as a poor carpenter preaching the sermon on the mouth "blessed are the poor theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven?"
We are so accustomed to thank God for the prosperity and the good things we have in life - a home, security, food everyday, an education and perhaps a job, and rightly so but not only is that to be enjoyed for ourselves alone, these gifts are empower and enable us to help others.
There are hundreds of thousands of dedicated young people among the poor and the needy. They are the unrecognized and unsung heroes who work in refugee camps, on the city streets with the homeless and the hungry bringing compassion hope and human development and I am blessed to know and work with them.
Faith resides in the People Of God, in each and every one of us who do our very best to serve and love others no matter what little we can do according to our means and abilities it is a contribution to the great ocean of dynamic love that is out there in the people of true faith.
They bring hope and love to the suffering and the sick, the wretched of the earth. They are upholding the dignity of every human person and their right to live in dignity and decency.
I was inspired by the generous responses of San Beda law Students to offer to join us in our work to free the children from the wretched conditions of the prisons of Metro Manila. One group of students has succeeded in bringing out a young boy. We need more legal and social science students to implement what they are learning in college and put it to the service of the children in prison. They only have to contact me at Preda Center in Olongapo or email me at preda@info.com.ph. This is Christianity in action.
God is love and has called us to be where God is most vividly present - in the poor. It may be hard to understand that but when with them we can see the presence. [End]
