We have to be very careful how we use terms. Spiritual poverty and poverty of spirit are not the same things. Poverty of Spirit an evangelical virtue, which means the same as a spirit of detachment from everything that is not God or that stand between us and God. Spiritual poverty is a moral state where we are lacking what is offered to us by grace.
As far as material poverty, we have to be careful there too. It is NOT TRUE that in the USA there are programs and services for the asking. The government would like everyone to think so, but try to access these services. Go out and do the work that we brothers do day in and day out.
We run five pregnancy centers in our diocese where we provide not only counseling and education to men and women in crisis pregnancies, but we also provide material support to those who are poor, because they are afraid of having their children. They don’t have the resources to raise them.
The government does not provide the adequate services. There is the WIC program and food stamps, which provides nutrition for babies and mom. But it only provides if you make less than $1800.00 per month. It does not factor in your expenses or the number of people in the household. We want our people to have babies, not to abort them or contracept. That means that they need the means to feed these babies, clothe them, and spacious housing. These are provided by us, not the state.
Older people who receive Social Security have not seen a cost of living increase in three years. The Medicare system covers only 80% of your hospitalization. It does not cover pharmacy and only a portion of your outpatient visits. Plus, you have to pay $116.00 per month for it, which is debited out of your Social Security check. In most states, if you get more than $800.00 per month in Social Security, you’re not entitled to any other financial assistance from state programs. Let’s do the math. You get $800.00 and subtract $116.00 for Medicare, then you have to pay for your pharmacy or buy supplemental insurance. All of this is coming out of the same $800.00. The states will not help you, because they look at the gross, not the net. They’re looking at the $800.00. In reality, you don’t have $800.00, not to mention that it’s very difficult to live on that kind of income in the USA. The end result is that we, the Franciscans of Life, spend a lot of time assuring the elderly that they are not a burden on their families. The current culture of death is leading these men and women to see themselves as a burden to their families. As a result, when they go to a hospital, they are given documents to sign that allow their surrogate and their doctors to put them to death at their discretion. We call this, “death with dignity.” Death with dignity is to live as a model to your children and grandchildren and to die knowing that you are loved by them and will be missed.
We, Americans, tend to believe everything the government tells us. My advice is, don’t. It’s very political, designed to keep the legislators out of trouble. They don’t want people to know that their tax dollars are being wasted, instead of going to their intended purpose. This produces a poverty that is the product of sin, not a free choice to live as Christ lived.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
