The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with the current worldwide movement to secure justice for the poor in the face of changes described as a climate emergency.
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| Care for poor and planet |
The passage from the Prophet Amos warns that complacent self-indulgence will be punished.
* [6:2] Calneh…Hamath…Gath: city-states overcome by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., whose fate should be a lesson to the Israelites. The prophet castigates the leaders for being more intent on pursuing a luxurious lifestyle (vv. 1, 4–6) than reading the signs of the times.1
The reading from 1 Timothy is an exhortation to continue the Good Fight of Faith.
* [6:11–16] Timothy’s position demands total dedication to God and faultless witness to Christ (1 Tm 6:11–14) operating from an awareness, through faith, of the coming revelation in Jesus of the invisible God (1 Tm 6:15–16).3
Psalm 146 shares the source of strength.
* [Psalm 146] A hymn of someone who has learned there is no other source of strength except the merciful God. Only God, not mortal human beings (Ps 146:3–4), can help vulnerable and oppressed people (Ps 146:5–9). The first of the five hymns that conclude the Psalter.2
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus from the Gospel of Luke exposes lack of concern of the privileged for the poor.
* [16:19–31] The parable of the rich man and Lazarus again illustrates Luke’s concern with Jesus’ attitude toward the rich and the poor. The reversal of the fates of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:22–23) illustrates the teachings of Jesus in Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:20–21, 24–25).4
Scott McClure comments that each of us may find ourselves as the rich man at certain times in our life and as Lazarus at others.
In this story as well as others, the question of who is our neighbor – and how we should treat them – is fundamental. The Gospel is clear that we are all neighbors. Once we take ownership of this reality, internalizing it, action must follow. Jesus modeled and preached a way of worshipping God that was far from theoretical and certainly far from comfortable. While we may worship God in many ways, among them must be through our concrete actions in love for one another. Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. (Mt 25:40)5
Don Schwager quotes “Creator of both rich and poor,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo, 3540-430 A.D.
"God made both the rich and the poor. So the rich and the poor are born alike. You meet one another as you walk on the way together. Do not oppress or defraud anyone. One may be needy and another may have plenty. But the Lord is the maker of them both. Through the person who has, He helps the one who needs - and through the person who does not have, He tests the one who has." (excerpt from Sermon 35, 7)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 16:19-31 comments that we all know that being a Christian means caring for the less fortunate. There are so many needy people that we can feel overwhelmed.
It’s helpful, then, to remember that Jesus didn’t have some grand strategy for solving the problem of poverty either. He just reached out to people, one by one. If the rich man in Jesus’ parable had done the same thing by caring for the beggar at his door, his life might have ended much differently.
That’s where we can start too—by helping one person at a time, especially those whom we encounter as part of our daily lives. If every person did that, think about how many people would be reached!7
Friar Jude Winkler compares the opulence of the very wealthy in purple robes with poor who could be sold for the price of a pair of sandals. The vertical and horizontal aspects of our faith call us to relationship with God and neighbour. Friar Jude reminds us that the mission of Timothy to be an example belongs to all followers of Christ.
In response to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) serves the Catholic family worldwide to turn Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical into action for climate justice, by undergoing our own ecological conversion, transforming our lifestyles and calling for bold public policies together with the wider climate movement.
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| Focus on transformation |
GCCM supports the Catholic Church to bring Laudato Si’ to life inthe following 3 dimensions (which are all equally important totackle this complex climate crisis):1. SPIRITUAL DIMENSION: We promote Laudato Si’ andencourage local communities to undergo the ‘ecologicalconversion’ needed to overcome consumerism and heal ourrelationship with creation and the poor; the Season of Creation isthe flagship project.2. LIFESTYLE DIMENSION: We encourage lifestyle changesthrough the Eco-Parish program to reduce the carbon footprintfrom Catholic parishes worldwide and the Divest-Reinvestprogram to shift Catholic nancial assets from dirty fossil fuels toclean renewable energy.3. PUBLIC POLICY DIMENSION: We raise our voice in the publicsphere to call for bold climate policies, by mobilizing in thestreets, supporting advocacy efforts in the halls of power andamplifying the Laudato Si’ message in the media.8
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, wants to share with us one of the most attractive, appealing, and accessible of all frames and doorways to the divine. It is called the Franciscan way after the man who first exemplified it, Francesco di Bernardone, born in Assisi, Italy.
Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. The result is deep joy and a resounding sense of coherent beauty. What was personified in the body of Jesus was a manifestation of this one universal truth: Matter is, and has always been, the hiding place for Spirit, forever offering itself to be discovered anew. Perhaps this is exactly what Jesus means when he says, “I am the gate” (John 10:7). Francis and his female companion, Clare (1194–1253), carried this mystery to its full and lovely conclusion. Or, more rightly, they were fully carried by the mystery. They somehow knew that the beyond was not really beyond, but in the depths of here.
One way to understand Francis and Clare is by reading their lives from what has emerged through their imitators and followers—those who discovered and rediscovered what can only be called radical simplification. Here I am thinking of people like Thérèse of Lisieux, Charles de Foucauld, Dorothy Day, Seraphim of Sarov, Nicholas von der Flüe, Mother Teresa, and, most recently, Pope Francis—to name a few Christian examples. The way of Francis of Assisi cannot be contained inside of formal Franciscanism simply because it is nothing more than the Gospel itself—in very distilled and honest form.9
The Christian example is one of transformation to living faith in harmony and care for all Creation.
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