Father Dan pulled out an interesting bit from this article for his facebook page today
"A key summarizing quote: "But you can do much more for the poor by getting married and remaining faithful to your spouse. Have the courage to use old-fashioned words such as chaste and honorable. Put on a tie. Turn off the trashy reality TV shows. Sit down to dinner every night with your family. Stop using expletives as exclamation marks. Go to church or synagogue."
Here's my quote from the same article
"A Christian who hopes to follow the teachings of Jesus needs to reckon with a singular fact about American poverty: Its deepest and most debilitating deficits are moral, not financial; the most serious deprivations are cultural, not economic. Many people living at the bottom of American society have cell phones, flat-screen TVs, and some of the other goodies of consumer culture. But their lives are a mess."
Here's my insight from 4 years as a public employee working in the impoverished area of Appalachia.
Umm.. why the HECK are we just picking on the poor for having lives that are a mess?
Because I personally feel like many Americans in the middle and upper classes also have lives that are a complete mess.
Today I read in shock about one of the saddest burials ever when a rich Catholic lady refused to have Last Rites or a Funeral Mass. It doesn't matter how many millions you have in the bank or how many rooms (42!) you have in your posh apartment in New York City. If you die alone in a hospital room, without your family, without a priest, and without your FAITH-- then you are a poor, poor girl.
Please, go out and sparkle with love and self-forgetfulness in your marriages tonight. Your light is needed. Know that practically all of America is (rich and poor alike) are spiritually starving at the gates of Heaven.
Blessed Mother, pray for us. Pray for Huguette M. Clark.
