A Quote for the Day

A bum is a human being whose fortunes, in his doing or not, turn against him, leaving him alone on the streets, alone in a world full of strangers. These are the people who lost his brothers and sisters when all around those who could become ones never take the time to look at him with love.

What the rich have difficulty of doing, but the poor are forced by life circumstances to do, is this--surrendering one's future into the hands of God, and not on one's own personal power and resources. This is something the rich finds very difficult to understand; but the poor understands very well. This is the gift of poverty, the reason why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom. Still God provides the needed graces to both, enough to bring them salvation should they respond with love to God and surrender to His Will.

Poverty as a scapegoat for committing crimes is overrated. That also discriminates the poor as being by situation the only potential criminals (everyone are potential criminals). Many sensational crimes involving fortunes to the tune of billions of dollars have been committed in corporate and government worlds by those who will not qualify to our common definition of poverty. If we want to point a finger to the cause of crime, that finger  must be directed to the heart of every man, where lies the unseen evil that ferments schemes to take other peoples' lives and properties against their will.

Poverty of spirit is not about lack of material things but of complete trust on the will of God. And yet there's no other life circumstance where you have the chance to find it than in poverty of the materials. A rich man will never have an inkling on how it feels to be desperate with no food to feed the long-hungry stomach, with no future seems in store, and only the Lord on his side. I read an account of the life of Saint Francis of Assissi wherein he faced the pressure from outside to control the Franciscan movement when they have grown to 5000 after ten years. People said that his dream of radical poverty was too harsh. During his time of prayer, he told Jesus about this, "Lord, didn't I tell you they wouldn't trust you?"