Riflessioni ad alta voce

Poverty and apostolate In order to understand the relationship between poverty and apostolate we should clarify a few points. Jesus tells us to take care of the poor. All through the Gospel we see that Jesus helps the poor and encourages his disciples to do the same. The aim of the apostolate is the total redemption of the person. Apostolate is a community matter. Nowadays all the religious congregations speak about the poor and claim to be at the service of the poor. We have to avoid two temptations: - To remain at a generic idealistic level. We are called to solve the problems of concrete people, problems which very often do not fit in our schemes and ideals. - To use our charity work as an instrument to boast and to increase our prestige. Usually we tend to do those works which can be seen, which will appear in newspapers, which can make us famous and, eventually, will attract donations. We should instead look for those situations which are less visible, less attra...

This is an analysis of how the vow of poverty is lived also at the level of psychological life. To fully understand what is meant by the three levels of human life you have to refer to my previous post on this topic: "Vocation and our capacity to respond to it. Poverty and the three levels of human life We have seen previously that human life is based on three levels: Psycho- physiological Psycho-social Spiritual-intellectual We saw also that love, which is the engine of our life, when acting at these three levels takes the form of Eros, Philia and Agape. Since love is the key for understanding all the vows, we can try to see how the vow of poverty applies to the three levels. Psycho-physiological level. This level regards the relationship of the person with himself, his desires and passions. The desire to possess things serves to cover or satisfy the need of avoiding sufferance, avoiding hard work, and also to avoid the fact that we see ourselves as weak, unsafe, not ...

Danger of a wrong interpretation of the vow of poverty When a religious start doing things against the vow of chastity, soon or late he will leave religious life, people will simply pity him, maybe criticize for a moment but then forget about him. When he fails in the vow of obedience, nobody will bother about it except his superiors. When instead he goes against poverty, he can easily find false reasons to excuse himself and he carries on in the religious life. The problem is that all the people he deals with will really feel angry at him and often scandalized. The damage we do to the kingdom of God is bigger when we act against poverty than when we act against chastity or obedience, and this damage carries on longer. Furthermore for every one religious who falls against chastity there are at least ten who fall against poverty. The person who sins against chastity knows clearly that he is doing something wrong and usually feels guilty about it, when he sins against povert...

Poverty in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there was the idea that richness is the fruit of the blessing of God, while poverty is the fruit of a punishment for something done wrong. Only with the prophets come out the idea that often the rich are so because they exploit the poor. In Amos, but also in Isaiah and Jeremiah we find already the message that the Lord will listen to the cry of the poor and oppressed. In the Psalms we find the invitation not to attach our hearts to material things which are destined to perish. So poverty becomes something acceptable, but surely not a kind of life to be directly chosen. In the New Testament we have a radical change. Phil 2 says that Jesus Christ though he was rich in heaven decided to lower himself and become a servant. For this choice the Father glorifies him. Is in Christ that poverty, humility, weakness are made choices needed to carry on God's plan: the plan of salvation. The life of Jesus Nazareth was the smallest...

THE VOW OF POVERTY: INTRODUCTION In order to understand the vow of poverty we should have a clear idea of what poverty means. First of all we should make a distinction between misery and poverty. By misery we mean the condition in which a person lacks the basic necessities, like clean water, proper and sufficient food, education, safe house, hygiene and medicines. Whenever any of these things is missing, the very life of the person is in danger. Misery is never the plan of God and should never be accepted. By poverty we mean the situation in which all the above necessities are assured, but no much more than that. What is missing are the unnecessary commodities like vehicles, television, telephone, and the access to a higher quality of things (best food, higher education, proper hospitals etc.). Poverty can be of two kinds: Unwanted poverty, where the poor person is not happy about his situation and wants to get out of it. Chosen poverty, where the person could...

Sexuality and vow of chastity Recalling what we have already said we can affirm that: - Man is made for relationship - Love is the language of this relationship Both relationship and love come from God and are a necessary part of human nature. From that we have to deduct that the vow of chastity cannot go against these two points. We can say that: The vow of chastity is in no way against relationships or love, but has a different way of fulfilling them. We do not give up the relationship but simply the physical aspect of it in order to develop better the social and spiritual aspects. We do not give up love, but the erotic aspect of it in order to develop better the agape aspect. So whoever makes the vow of chastity has to be a mature person, able to understand his own impulses and desires, accept them as part of his nature and sublimate them rather than satisfy them.

Problems and deviations in sexuality Before dealing with the problems which can come out of sexuality we must put a clear foundation to our concept. 1- Sexuality comes from God (he is the source and so we should respect the way he made things). It has a purpose. (Goal. We cannot use things for our own purpose) 2- The language of sexuality is LOVE. (Instrument. If we speak a different language then we create misunderstandings). 3- Furthermore we should keep in mind what in the person is: - Gender. (Male or female, as provided by nature and written in the genes). - Orientation. (This is the feeling we prove for other people, whom we are attracted to). - Desire or choices. (The actions we take in our sexual behavior).  The deviations can be divided in groups according to where the problem lies compared to the 6 points above. Of course we have to remember that not all deviations are actual sins. A sin is a purposely made choice of something that is wrong, while many ...