We need to give away some of our own possessions in order to be healthy. Wealth that is hoarded always corrupts those who possess it. Any gift that is not shared turns sour. If we are not generous with our gifts, we will be bitterly envied and will eventually turn bitter and envious ourselves. These are all axioms with the same warning; we can only be healthy if we are giving away some of our riches to others.
Among other things, this should remind us that we need to give to the poor, not simply because they need it, though they do, but because unless we give to the poor, we cannot be healthy ourselves. In the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus reveals what will be great test for the final judgment, his single set of criteria have entirely to do with how we gave to the poor: Did you feed the hungry? Give drink to the thirsty? Cloth the naked?
Catholic social doctrine tells us too that the earth was given by God for everyone and that truth too limits how we define what is really ours as a possession. Properly speaking, we are stewards of our possessions rather than owners of them. Implicit in all of this, of course, is the implication that we can be moral and healthy only when we view private ownership in a larger picture that includes the poor.
We need, always, to be giving some of our possessions away in order to be healthy. The poor do need us, but we also need them. They are, as Jesus puts it so clearly when he tells us we will be judged by how we gave to the poor, our passports to heaven. And they are also our passports to health. Our health depends upon sharing our riches. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Our Need to Share Our Riches with the Poor” March 2014]
