In spirit. \u00a0During the era of Pope Francis, the focus has fallen on economic and material hardship and those causes for our suffering. \u00a0That can be expected. \u00a0If Pope Francis isn\u2019t a liberation theologian, he\u2019s clearly influenced by that particular school of thought.<\/p>\n
Not that he fails to point out the spiritual, but if we\u2019re not careful, we can begin to think that being poor is ever and always a bad thing. \u00a0It\u2019s not, especially poor in spirit. \u00a0Of course the quandary has always been that we\u2019re called to take care of the poor while being told the poor are blessed. \u00a0That\u2019s poor, the physically poor, as in the Gospel of Luke.<\/p>\n
At no time, however, are we told in the Gospels to eliminate poverty or keep people from being poor. \u00a0That\u2019s noteworthy. \u00a0We\u2019re merely called to take care of them. \u00a0Because the Gospel is, and always has been, the ultimate counter-cultural message. \u00a0While the world indulges in gimme, gimme, gimme; get, get, get, we\u2019re called to a different framework for seeing life.<\/p>\n
Doing without can be OK. \u00a0It helps us get toward that other blessed poorness, and that\u2019s the poor in spirit. \u00a0The Gospel of Matthew takes that approach. \u00a0Not that you can\u2019t have a crap ton of money and power and be poor in spirit. \u00a0It\u2019s just more difficult. After all, Jesus didn\u2019t say it was impossible to get into heaven with wealth. \u00a0He said it was as easy a pulling a camel through the eye of a needle.<\/p>\n
I was thinking on that as I read these two reflections, here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>, on just what it is to be poor in spirit. \u00a0Well worth the read on this first Lenten Friday.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In spirit. \u00a0During the era of Pope Francis, the focus has fallen on economic and material hardship and those causes for our suffering. \u00a0That can be expected. \u00a0If Pope Francis isn\u2019t a liberation theologian, he\u2019s clearly influenced by that particular school of thought. Not that he fails to point out the spiritual, but if we\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,44,19],"tags":[76,90],"class_list":["post-8806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-in-the-post-modern-world","category-christianity-in-the-world","category-interesting-insights","tag-faith","tag-interesting-insights"],"yoast_head":"\n