Daily Reading for June 11 • St. Barnabas, Apostle
Is poverty abysmal or blessed? One of the most famous lines in the Gospels is Jesus’ beatitude: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Through the ages, Christians have been puzzled by what Jesus meant.
Many people act as if death is the worst thing that can happen to one, and pain the most tragic, but they are not. More to be feared are lovelessness, apathy, self-centeredness, or dread. But in our society, so often it seems that what we fear most of all is impoverishment and its companions: exclusion, ridicule, stigma, coercion, or early death. Poverty in spirit may refer to the characteristics in which people—whether they are materially deprived or not—do not rely on material provisions for their security and sense of self. The spiritually poor may be more “totally at the disposition of the Lord.” Dealing with harsh conditions of impoverishment sometimes creates a kind of intimacy with one’s own limits that deepens the soul. It can even create joy. Kahlil Gibran’s phrase is often quoted because it is often found to resonate with people’s experience: “The deeper sorrow has carved into your being, the more joy you can contain.” So the poor in spirit are “blessed” or happy—and this blessedness has a stable core that neither ridicule nor penury can rock.
From What Can One Person Do? Faith to Heal a Broken World by Sabina Alkire and Edmund Newell. © 2005 by Church Publishing, Inc. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org