“Father close by and within me…” (Raol Plus, “How To Pray Always”, p.102).
We live in such a rich country.
We are completely and utterly provided for. We have really nothing to fear in terms of financial security.
Now, this is not to say that there are no people who are struggling very badly to make ends meet in this country – of course there are. But – generally – Australia has a very large middle class. In economic terms this means that in Australia the gap between the very very rich and the very very poor is punctuated with lots of people like me who can make enough money to live a relatively comfortable life (through the Grace of God). We are by no means rich, but neither are we poor. Instead we are people who can provide a place to live in, buy groceries each week, occasionally take a holiday and can cloth and educate our children.
But there is more to the richness of this country than that. In MOST parts of Australia, if you had the terribly Cross and misfortune of being homeless a person would still be able to survive outside and in the elements.
Compare this with places like Canada, the United States of America and even Europe and the story is quite different. During the winter months people die of exposure to the cold. If you have no home to live in or enough money to afford to heat your home, you and your children may very well die of exposure in countries like that…
And yet, Christ is in every single Human soul. He is in all the poor too. When Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta experienced her calling to minister to the poorest of the poor, she felt Christ call her to HIM – through the poor…
For the true poverty of this world and this place is not in the material things that we might or might not buy. It is in the spiritual poverty of souls who cannot keep warm during the spiritual winters and long dark nights of the soul…
Saint Josemaria wrote in “The Forge” at page 558, “Jesus Our Lord loved men so much that he became incarnate, took to himself our nature, and lived in daily contact with the poor and the rich, with the just and with sinners, with young and old, with Gentiles and Jews. He spoke to everyone: to those who showed good will towards Him, and to those who were only looking for a way to twist His words and condemn Him. You should try to act as Our Lord did.”
And I have been thinking about that today – acting as Our Lord acted. For after all, it seems to me that sometimes the richness of our world and all its comforts distracts us from the wonderful miracle that richness really is – and for Our Lord – such a distraction never existed…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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