Just south of
Fredericksburg, Virginia, as I made the turn from US Highway 17 to County Road
2, I looked across the open field to my right and saw two derelict houses at
the edge of a piney woods. Raised off
the ground, as is not uncommon in the Tidewater, they were simple single-story frame
houses, fronted with porches and punched-out windows. They looked pathetic. Ah, the poverty of the Old South, I thought
as I was reminded of so many similar sights from my youth in Alabama and all
across the region.
But as I whizzed
further down the road, cars and trucks ahead, behind, and flying by, I
reconsidered. When those houses were
homes, how poor did their residents think they were? Were they starving? Probably not. Did they know the people around them, and were
they known by them? No doubt. And
would they have given of what they had to someone in need? I would be deeply
surprised if the answer were no.
I have no way of
knowing whether they were white or black, these people who once called that
intersection home; but I could be confident that they worked hard for
everything they had, and were then grateful that they had it. It is so easy to look upon such rough
circumstances and rejoice to live now in such abundance and comfort. But at what cost have we gained our ease?
We have so much food
we have to watch our diets to keep from ballooning out of our clothes. There is nobody we encounter daily who would
not garner or offer authentic sympathy if air conditioning, heat, or plumbing
were to fail to function properly for even hours, much less days. Communication, entertainment, and mobility
are features of every life we encounter.
Yet there is sadness;
sadness everywhere. Is it because people
need more – more comfort, more ease, even more opportunity? Politicians pound the podium asserting this
or that group needs more, more accommodation, more assistance, more
opportunity. This lot can only hope to
thrive, can only achieve their potential, they say, if someone gives them more! But is that really what people need – more?
Mother Teresa once
said that it is a poverty that a child must die so that you can live as you
wish. That got me thinking that besides
and far beyond abortion, our civilization has promulgated many new poverties.
It is a poverty to
have more stuff than you have place to keep it.
It is a poverty to be able to satiate your every craving by laying down
a card or pointing and clicking. It is a
poverty to call “friends” people you’ve never seen or heard. It is a poverty to identify yourself by your
hobbies or your collections, or to think that your career will define who you
are. It is a poverty to be alone in a
crowd, and even more of a poverty to crave anonymity. It is a poverty to be bored.
Even the poorest
among us have more, can do more, and know more than any other people who have
every lived. Yet do we have more
joy? All evidence points precisely to the
contrary.
Everyone knows Jesus told
people to give to the poor, but would be hard pressed to cite a when He gave a poor
person any money or clothing or any thing
at all. One might gather that the good he wanted us to
accomplish in giving anything, would be in our getting shed of it, rather than
anyone else’s acquiring it.
Aside from this
instruction on how to fight poverty (our own), what Jesus does give is the one
thing He has most in abundance: His life.
And He gives it as food. The Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus
Christ is the best remedy for the impoverishment of identity and relationship
and life into which we relentlessly plunge ourselves. As we worship the Holy Eucharist in this
weekend’s Feast, look upon Christ in the elements of the altar, and see God’s
idea for the “war on poverty.”
Monsignor
Smith
