One great “momism,” usually pronounced at the supper table had to do with eating everything on your plate while thinking of the poor starving children in India, Africa, or some remote place on the planet other than one’s own. All of course were her code words for you to devour those limp “green little bushes” of broccoli sitting there right before your eyes. So much for relieving hunger in our big, wide and beautiful world!
Fast-forward to the present obese population in our nation, where in any given week, right here in the USA about seven million people require food assistance in any given week! And of course there are the 2.l billion people of our planet who live on less than $1 a day, while half the population of the world lives on less than $2 a day! And here at our own space on the globe there’s the ironic fact that hungry adults miss more work and and consume more health care than those who don’t go hungry.
All the while, literally hundreds of organizations, from the UN to children contributing their coins in Lenten mite boxes, all constantly work to relieve that hunger and poverty that surrounds us.
Back to each of us individually, while Mom is now with God, as adult followers of Christ, He too constantly reminds us “…. to give a share to my brothers and sisters…” “to whom will all this piled-up wealth of yours go?” Ultimately we make ourselves vulnerable – each of us – by our personal part in the destructive national behavior (attitude) to “…eat heartily, drink well. Enjoy yourself.”
Wolfgang Mozart wrote some of his finest music while suffering poverty and want. Although posterity regards him as one of the greatest musicians, he died in poverty and was buried in a pauper’s grave. His gift lives on and is shared throughout the world. Will my gift of sharing live on for the good of others?
St. Luke records “You fool! This very night your life shall be required of you.”
- Fr. Xavier Vitacolonna, CP
As the author says so well, will our gifts live on because we have shared them? Anyone who has spent some time among the truly poor people of the world realizes how little it takes to survive. Yet having so much more does not necessarily increase the quality of our life, unless we live graciously, which means showering our own gifts on others (in whatever form they may take), with a sense of our dependence on God.