Saint Elizabeth Anne Seton was an Anglican with a large family who converted to Roman Catholicism after her husband's death. She founded the Sisters of Charity in the United States. This quote on living simply was featured today. I don't believe this.
Living simply has its own rewards, but it is always relative. Compared to some of our neighbors in our condo complex, we live simply. I am buying coffee in the morning for $.95 instead of $1.89 and putting the difference in our Haiti fund, but I could make it at home for five cents and put $2 in the kitty instead of one. A friend returned from India last Friday. She said the poverty was so appalling she could think of nothing but getting home to a shower and non-spicy food. She was so grateful for what we have!
Nothing is a more oppresive slave master than materialism and always wanting more stuff. Maybe we're not those hoarders like we see on reality TV, but our belongings own us. But there's no way that the stuff I don't lavish on myself makes it to a victim of the Haitian earthquake or the child of a low caste family that cleans latrines in India. Even if I were to take the money I saved and send it to a trusted NGO or Christian charity, there are just too many salaries to be paid and too many palms to be greased. What changes the lives of people is honest governments and solid infrastructures. Dictators will take your donation for an improved well and if there are no roads and no working trucks, the foodstuffs will be eaten by rats before it is ever unloaded at the dock or airport.
You do what you can because it is the right thing to do, not because you will change someone else's life. Look through Matthew 25 and what Jesus says about the poor, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the ill. He never promises a changed world; only a changed you.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
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4 comments:
sell all your goods,give the money to the poor and follow me. Only ones I know that do that are the Catholic nuns. They have nursed many,educated many and show many the way. Ever talk to me? for other of us all we can do try to help"I was hungry and you fed me,I was naked and you clothed me ,I was sick and you comforted me going to nursing home twice a year doesn't do it for some Catholics nor does writing checks they are in the current word "proctive" and also I believe they ask said saints to intervene for them and are not acually praying to them. Would we deny Jesus mother was not something rather special-in any church. A radio program is not knowing the Catholic faith.
We're probably very close in the efficacy of giving and serving--it doesn't change the life of the one on the receiving end, it changes the one doing God's work.
Praying to saints is a phrase I hear often--perhaps we listen to different priests and radio hosts. Perhaps you ask them to intervene, but how is that done if not through prayer? I know my mother is with Jesus, but I don't pray to her; I don't ask her to intervene, but I'm sure she was just as holy as some called "saints" in Catholicism, because in the NT all believers are called saints.
And in my faith family, if you pray to someone you believe they have some power over you. So we limit that to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Period. Anything else is idolatry.
Mary is respected as the mother of Jesus in the Lutheran tradition; she is not born without sin, and she had other children after his birth, conceived and delivered the usual, God-designed way. And Joseph was their father and a fine step-father exemplary in every way for Jesus. This is not so in the Catholic church which has developed many traditions and teachings about Mary--more and more and more was placed on poor Mary's shoulders as the church moved through the centuries and moved further away from the real Jesus.
From Catholic Answers
"As the prayers themselves witness, the Church teaches us that we should pray not only directly to God, but also to those who are close to God, those who have the power to intercede upon our behalf. Indeed, we pray to the angels to help and watch over us; we pray to the saints in heaven to ask their intercession and assistance; we pray to the Blessed Mother to enlist her aid, to ask her to beg her Son to hear our prayers. Further, we pray not only on our own behalf, but also on the behalf of those souls in purgatory and of those brothers on earth who are in need. Prayer unites us to God; in doing so, we are united to the other members of the Mystical Body."
Maybe she doesn't know the teachings of the faith or is a cafeteria catholic?
Eastern Orthodox also pray to the saints: "I've been reading a book about St. Basil of Ostrog and am really impressed by his life and miracles. I asked my priest if he could pray that St. Basil of Ostrog answer my prayer. My priest did, and added (in a reasonable manner) that I could get an icon for the church as an offering. I was like, I could do that, and have ordered an icon as an offering for the church.
If you could please pray to St. Basil of Ostrog that he accepts this offering of gratitude for his help of healing, I would appreciate it!" From a comment at an orthodox web site.
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