|
Call me "Secondhand Rose" if you must, but nothing pleases me more than finding a used item at a great price. It stretches the budget, it's environmentally healthy and, if you don't get carried away, it's great sport.
I should get one of those "I brake for garage sales" bumper stickers.
Lead me into a nice secondhand store when I have time to browse and I'm a happy woman.
So it was the other day when I came home with a linen blouse from a used clothing store. It was an excellent brand, one that carries a respectable price tag when new. It was in like-new condition, a soft-apricot color and a perfect fit. And it was five bucks! What more could this bargain hunter want?
As I carried my "find" into the house, I stopped to get the mail, and once inside the kitchen, I sifted through it, glancing at the latest issue of Sacred Ground, the newsletter from the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging.
My family has sponsored a boy in Venezuela, Jose Gustavo, through this organization for a few years, ever since a priest spoke at our parish and signed people up.
I noticed the story of a young father in the Philippines who supports his family by operating a tricycle taxi, a little motorized vehicle jerry-rigged with a side car to haul one or two people.
The man, a handsome guy in jeans and a bright T-shirt, stood proudly by his taxi, looking like any guy you'd see cheering his kids at the soccer field.
The story said a Filipino expression applies to a day laborer like him: "Work one, eat one." It means that the man, who of course doesn't belong to a union or get any paid days off, must work one day to provide just the amount of money needed to sustain his family the next.
And what does this taxi driver earn to make ends meet? After he pays for his fuel, the price of which has been rising in the Philippines just like everywhere else, he makes $5 daily for his family's needs.
Five bucks. I looked down at my linen shirt lying on the cabinet right next to the story. Suddenly it was a luxury item, this man's daily bread, purchased on a whim.
Throughout the past century, the Catholic Church in myriads of official documents has come to cast its vision on justice in a world where some people have so much less than others.
Pope Leo XIII got the ball rolling when he wrote Rerum Novarum in 1891. In it he talked about working conditions and laborers' rights. Rerum Novarum introduced new conversation into the church's discussion.
Previously, charity had been our response to the poor of the world - giving alms to the poor, aiding those in need.
Certainly charity remains a good and necessary thing. But for over 100 years, the church, through encyclicals, the writings of the Second Vatican Council and other writings, has educated us to look at institutional reasons for poverty, what Pope John Paul II called "the structures of sin" in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.
But how educated are we? Many have called Catholic social justice teaching "our best kept secret." We don't talk about it much. Charity is rarely controversial, but trying to figure out the hard truth of justice can be a minefield.
In this election year Americans need to look at their country and the world and ask how they can meet the challenge the church has given us to find "a preferential option for the poor."
Effie Caldarola of Anchorage, Alaska, is a syndicated columnist for CNS.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comment form