A young Jesuit keen on gaining a wide experience of the different forms and ways of life spent a day as a beggar near a busy street. At the end of the day, he had not received a single penny. Not one had given him anything at all!! Hungry, tired and totally at a loss, as this young cleric was about to return to his seminary, a 'fellow' beggar noticing his "zero balance" offered him some bread. As they together ate the bread, the seminarian was grateful for this kind gesture and at the end of the conversation, the senior man told him not to get discouraged but to come back again the next day.
I know not if the cleric went back the next day or not, but I'm told that from that day on he learnt the value of food.
"I am the bread of life" makes sense only in such a context, not when you have your table full and overflowing and you have nothing more to do than just go and eat! If you really are hungry, the type of food will not matter and certainly you will be genuinely grateful.
What most of us religious lack is not food or resources (never!) but real hunger!
I know not if the cleric went back the next day or not, but I'm told that from that day on he learnt the value of food.
"I am the bread of life" makes sense only in such a context, not when you have your table full and overflowing and you have nothing more to do than just go and eat! If you really are hungry, the type of food will not matter and certainly you will be genuinely grateful.
What most of us religious lack is not food or resources (never!) but real hunger!
This is not particularly the problem of the religious.
ReplyDeleteIt's the problem of plenty. The law of diminishing marginal utility. I thought that was a brilliant understanding of human nature. And it applies to all of us in some way or the other.