Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent
December 18, 2007
"The lives of the poor he shall save."
- Psalm 72:13

The poorest person on the face of the earth is the one who does not personally know Jesus Christ.

Some of the greatest spiritual leaders have called our wealthy nation a country full of poverty. How could a country that produces and consumes so much of the world's goods be called poor? The poverty is not in the material but in the immaterial. It is in our lack of knowing and relating with our unseen God. We were created by love, for love, to be perfected in the fullness of the creator's love. We choose the spiritual poverty of not having God's life-giving love by not seeking communion with Jesus instead of things. To not choose Jesus as our loving Lord and Savior leads to an endless poverty of the soul which is why we can say that the poorest person is the one who does not know Christ. Are you poor? Am I poor?

Once I received a thought-provoking email. It had to do with a couple of buttons that our parish of St. Joseph the Worker gives out. One button says, “Pray All Ways” on it and another button is “You are Loved”. I was asked if I thought it was a waste to spend money on all the buttons when that money could be used for the poor. My response to that question is as follows.

The buttons. Should we have spent millions of dollars refurbishing and renovating the Cathedral in downtown Portland, Oregon in the 1990's? I don't know. What about the wealth of Rome and the Catholic Church in general? Good questions. There is no doubt we should do all we can to put an end to physical poverty and we need to be good stewards of our money to that end. I do know and believe, however, that the poorest person on the face of the earth is the one who does not know Jesus Christ. I know that the church exists to evangelize and glorify God. And I believe we could be doing a much better job at that. My main goal as a priest is to lead people to Jesus Christ and do all I can do to get them to heaven. The "You are loved" message has touched 100,000's lives. People have told me personally how they have chosen not to take their own lives because of that message. A waste of money? I think not. I spend a month of my salary about once a year to by those buttons because I feel the Holy Spirit telling me to do so. 75,000 buttons have been given out so far spreading the GOOD News of Jesus' saving love. And the people are running with this message all around the earth introducing Jesus Christ to those who do not know of his forgiveness and salvation - those people who are the poorest people on the face of the earth. And the buttons calling us to prayer? What could be more important than to abide in Jesus? Union with Christ is the goal of prayer and the desire of the Christian.

Christ came to eradicate spiritual poverty. It is our job to do all we can, including giving out buttons, to fully cooperate with our Lord and Savior to put an end to the greatest kind of poverty ever known to humankind.

We are infinitely blessed!

+ Fr. John