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INSIGHTS
Guest Opinion
Who are the poor? Are they different?
By M. J. Landry
Who are the poor and needy? How do they live? What do they think? How do they feel? What makes them different from everybody else?
When these and many similar questions are asked concerning the poor and needy, the answers are very often general, statistical, vague, misleading, judgemental and demeaning.
The words that make up these answers run together, making the poor and needy a nameless, faceless mass that can be easily placed in categories and forgotten.
But the poor and needy are people — human beings, flesh and blood. They feel pain, both physical and emotional. They have needs and wants. They are children, elderly, and all ages between. They are from all races, creeds and nationalities.
What makes the poor and needy different from everybody else? NOTHING. Nothing that is of real meaning. Of course there is less money, possibly less education, less clothing, less of an automobile. But all these measures of “less” are measures of mankind.
In Mark’s Gospel, chapter 7:8-9, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, ‘“You disregard God’s commandments and cling to what is human tradition.’ He went on to say: ‘You have made a fine art of setting aside God’s commandment in the interests of keeping your traditions!”’
Is Jesus speaking to us as well? Yes.
We judge people by what they own or don’t own. In these United States we have imaged for ourselves and our children the Great American Dream — a big house, two cars, all the right clothes, all the right clubs and so on. If a person has not achieved this dream, then society says something is wrong with him or her.
An alternative approach is found in the opening words of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Vatican II, 1965):
“The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
These words challenge us to go past the numbers in statistics and the categories of the system, to the individuals:
—to fathers and mothers who shed tears because they cannot provide adequate food, shelter and clothing for their children;
—to young, unwed mothers who think their only contribution in society is their ability to have children.
Many of us who have enough food, shelter, clothing and someone to love us forwhruu^"—^-—■