In everything, there are always some exceptions.
Anybody who’s had experience of “fund-raising” will tell you that the poor, in general, are far more generous than the rich. Now there’s a paradox for you! Of course there are exceptions, as there always are to most so-called rules-outstanding exceptions sometimes.
But they remain EXCEPTIONS.
It is difficult to explain to explain this phenomenon in terms of mere human logic because logically those who have more to give should be giving more that those who have less since after they (the rich) have made their gift they still have more to fall back on. Yet things do not work out that way. Why not? No one really knows. Perhaps poverty, and its constant threat of want, accustoms people to thrust in God move. Thus they learn that God can be relied on, especially in times when they have been generous-in-spite-of-their-destitution. Perhaps too, great wealth, or at least constant abundance, hardens the heart particularly if that wealth’s acquisition was by graft and avarice, and thus the heart is made impervious, in the long run, to compassion.
Fr. Jerry Orbos, SVD, time and time again in his Sunday Inquirer column and various other publications remind the rich not to take themselves too seriously, not to be like those righteous Pharisees who are thankful… that they are not like other men but take pride in being “self-made” men. Well, Fr. Jerry doesn’t tire of reminding those self-made fools that they will die sooner or later. That they are not that important, and, most to the point, that they are not in control. The parable of the beggar-window who gave her mite in contrast to the show off Pharisee who gave his bigger contribution ostentatiously, knowing it’s just an iota of his wealth, points this touching paradox in bold strokes. Reading incidentally of Fr. Jerry’s comical preacher whose long-winded sermons made his flock call him NEVEREND instead of REVEREND: that preacher’s more daring listeners say that he (the Neverend) was too cruel to the flocks NETHERENDS. So one word to the wise: I herewith end my homily to spare you netherends.
