Today we get two radical portraits of the opposite—a total disregard for self-preservation. Both the widows at Zeraphath and in the Gospel of Mark were knocking at death’s door and yet, one thought not of herself nor of her son but the Prophet Elijah’s need, which to me, came across as entitled and the other, who without second thoughts, put all she had into the collection. They invite us to reflect on the grace of generosity, its relation to material possession and how to sublimate our need for self-preservation.
Firstly, there is a category called the poor. A common conception that the poor are so because of laziness or that they lack of initiative. This is especially for those who pride themselves as having a work ethics. If you come across a young and healthy man begging, your first thought could be: “got hands and feet, why not work”? There could be myriad reasons for not working but for Jesus, the presence of the poor was a condemnation of a system that gave rise to them. His society was so structured that some are fated to remain destitute—especially the widows, the orphans and the poor. If that system is alien to us perhaps a modern example might help. When a priest falls sick, do you think he will be admitted to the 3rd class ward of Sultan Aminah Hospital? By the very fact that he is a priest, he is already accorded better access to health care. The usual rationale “Oh we need our priest to be healthy to serve us” may be true but still it betrays an arrangement that that values a class over another. Some are more valued over others. It is fact that those who have more have better access than those who are poor. This leads me to the second point.
When we moralise about wealth, the line is pretty thin. We are often not far from envy. What we do not like about the rich may masks a resentment because we have no access (avenue) to their excesses (extravagances). How we wish we could live like them—signing contracts worth millions or sailing on a RM1B yacht surrounding by the rich, famous and the voluptuous—chuffing champagne and cramming down caviar canapés. Maybe not in that way but you get the gist. We have been simply seduced by suggestions that an opulent lifestyle is preferable to the penury of abject poverty. It is better to be full than to be hungry. The question is how to be full in a way in preserves our human dignity and this brings me to the third point.
There has to be a better to think about wealth than not having it. Meaning that the issue is not “to have or not to have” or that for salvation, poverty is preferable to riches. We take our cue from the Apostles’ Creed. I believe in the Communion of Saints. This communion helps us to appreciate that wealth in itself is not a bad thing, that its roots is communal rather than individual. It is less an indicator of personal possession because its connexion is communal as suggested by the word: commonwealth. We witness this in the early Church where the community pooled everything they had and they shared it amongst themselves in such a way that no one was ever in want of what they needed.
The concept of pooling everything together may be an ideal that can work if the community were small enough but it becomes unwieldy when the community becomes larger. However, the principle behind it remains—that the ability to share what we have is founded on the idea that God is Provident. God does not only provide; He provides abundantly as evidenced by Elijah’s encounter with the widow of Zarephath. Furthermore, it also directs our attention to the proper meaning of wealth, that all we possess is never ours. We are merely stewards of God’s providence. As finance chief in my previous parish rightly put it, “Father, money is not yours unless you spend it”. And spent I did.
The notion of common good is based on God’s overarching providence for humanity. Common good suggests that what each of us has is not truly ours. Instead, what we have is part of God’s Providence and we are merely custodians of God’s patrimony. If we blessed with more, some might take it as a measure of wealth, but the truth is, when we are given more, we are actually entrusted with a heavier responsibility. Riches are given not for us to spend in any which way we like even though many of us do but for us to take care of those who for some reasons or other cannot take care of themselves.
I once had a conversation with super intelligent young man, an MIT candidate. Told him that once he has achieved the pinnacle of success to come back and help our country develop. It is true that his skin colour might not be the “kulification” the country cared for. Anyway, point blank he answered me, “No way”. I countered, “Your intelligence is God’s gift to you to be used for a greater purpose, that is, of helping others who are not as gifted as you are”. He response: “That is their problem”.
Riches (or gifts) do not grant the wealthy a divine right to their usage because they are only means to an end. As St Teresa of Avila, quite wisely pointed that out, “Money may be the devil’s excreta, but it is certainly a good fertiliser”. Picture what the Book of Wisdom says: “The mighty shall be mightily put to the test. For the Ruler of all shows no partiality, nor does He fear greatness. Because He Himself made the great as well as the small and provides for all alike but for those in power a rigorous scrutiny impends” (Wis 6: 6-8). The rich will be judged not by their riches but by how they use it in the service of the Lord.
This changes the landscape of wealth. We generate more not because we want to accumulate but so that more can be shared. Catholicism or Christianity is compatible with wealth and it ties in with the Communion of Saints. According to the Catechism, “Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others... We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the Church. As this Church is governed by one and the same Spirit, all the good she has received necessarily become a common fund”. St Augustine spoke of the challenge posed by wealth that people who are rich are sometimes more disgusted by a bad house than by a bad life. What was he saying? It is as if a man’s priority is to have all his possessions good except himself. Wealth is to make us better people—generous, kinder and more loving—but if our possessions turn us selfish, cruel and hateful, then we are better off without them.
To conclude, “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth” is a quote attributed to a spiritual daughter of Teresa of Avila, who is none other than St Therese de Lisieux. Perhaps we could take a leaf from her and tell ourselves that instead of waiting for heaven, we should spend ourselves here on earth doing good for heaven. We do not need to wait for heaven to do good. We do good with what we have in order that we might gain heaven. This means that one ought to, in the generation of wealth, do it in an ethical manner. And in the process, not forget that there are those who might need our help. To do good is beneficial to the soul. Try it and you know what I mean. If only we can build into our ecosystem, a way of allowing the beneficiary of charity to engage in acts of charity themselves—that becomes a way of paying forward. This brings me to the final point: self-preservation.
All of us, without exception, want to live as I pointed out last week. We are not interested in merely existing, we want to live fully and forever. In general, we will do all within our capacity to preserve life and that is a good thing. But along the way, some of us may have forgotten that to live forever, like the grain, we must die to ourselves. The greatest proof of the fullness of life is not holding on to it. It is in the giving that one will receive the fullness of life; it is in the dying that one will live forever. Unless a grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain. Remember, a candle is only useful when it is fully burnt. It is useless otherwise.
