Tuesday, October 24, 2017 29th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Rom 5:12. 15.17-19.20-21Gospel: Luke 12:35-38
Jesus said to his disciples, “Be ready, dressed for service, and keepyour lamps lit, like people waiting for their master to return fromthe wedding. As soon as he comes and knocks, they will open to him.Happy are those servants whom the master finds wide-awake when hecomes. Truly, I tell you, he will put on an apron and have them sit attable and he will wait on them. Happy are those servants if he findsthem awake when he comes at midnight or daybreak!”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life
Experience)
Many solutions have been proposed to address the problem of poverty. Among the popular ones is the proposal of Todaro and Smith. According to them a more humane life is achieved by the sustained elevation of the entire society and the social system. To achieve this good life Todaro and Smith (Economic development, 2003) propose the satisfaction of triple human needs, namely, the need for sustenance, self-esteem and freedom from slavery. Let’s focus only on self-esteem for lack of space in this column.
Human beings attain the good life if systems promote their self-worth.What gives citizens a sense of self-worth may vary from culture toculture, but all agree that self- esteem is not available in a societythat uses people as mere tools to feed its systems. Governmentsdetermined to use the citizens like cogs in a wheel encourage citizensto believe that poverty is a destiny of some much as prosperity is theprivilege of a few. They fool poor people into believing that they areborn poor and destined to die poor.A misunderstanding of the biblical verse “happy are the poor” tends toencourage passive submission to poverty and to systems that fatten afew at the expense of the least. It was also this Bible verse thatled one communist leader to believe that religion is the opium of thepeople. As opium renders people numb to physical pain, so religionmakes poor people submissive to their plight. But this Gospel versenever intends to encourage material poverty. Whatit does encourage is spiritual poverty that makes one humble and loving towards the less fortunate. God does not rejoice over the material misery of his own people if such hinders them from living their lives to the full.The theory of Todaro and Smith assures the attainment of the good lifewhen development sets people free instead of reducing them to mere parts of the system like cogs in a wheel. It is one good theory to support. But it is not doable untilpeople are “dressed for service” and take responsibility over theplight of others. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.
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