October 18, 2004

I recently had a conversation with a man sitting next to me on a plane (not the one filled with smoke as in Friday’s message!). He was a car collector and was telling me his woes of relocating to California and having a difficult time moving all of his vehicles. I really felt sorry for him for having all of those cars.

Materialism is not new, even if it is particularly rampant in a wealthy society like our own. Pope Gregory the Great warned Christians in the 6th Century, “Do not let what you own, own you.” This is indeed one of the great joys of our Franciscan life – the freedom that comes with poverty and simplicity. Saint Francis responded to the invitation “to take nothing for the journey” and the Lord revealed the abundance of His spiritual riches.

Saint Luke’s Gospel particularly shows our Lord’s love of poverty. Jesus seems to be especially attracted to the poor – what the Church calls a “preferential option for the poor”. From the choice of the “lowly handmaid” Mary to be His mother, to the Beatitudes, to the widow’s son, to the widow’s mite, to the good thief on the Cross, Jesus reveals His solicitude for His poor children.

Although everyone is not called to the same material poverty of Saint Francis and the “missionary mandate” of the Gospel, every Christian is called to break free from a grasping and selfish attitude. Saint Thomas More, the chancellor of England, ate sparingly and invited the poor to his table. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary took off her crown and fed the poor who came to her. When we offered to fix the house of one poor and very joyful woman in Honduras she told us that she wouldn’t want to have a better house than Jesus had. These are just a few examples of the freedom that comes from belonging to God rather than to our belongings.

Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
Community vicar, residing at St. Joseph Friary in Harlem ________________________________________________________________________________

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