Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

BASKET FOR THE POOR

            America is an average African boy’s dream. Most of our youth would like to have the taste of the American juicy life. Whenever you visit America and return some people look at you as if you have returned from heaven. Anyway, it is good for young African boys to nurse that dream because the founding fathers of America have really built a nation full of opportunities. We praise them for the legacy they have left behind.

            Whenever one is visiting Europe or America, some elders will advise you “to be careful not to go and drink the water of forgetfulness…because a life of comfort can create forgetfulness.” In simple terms they advise one to remember his parents, brothers, sisters, and friends when things turn out for the better for him. I refer to similar advice from the author to the book of Deuteronomy.

The author was fully aware of the humble beginnings of the Jews in Egypt. He recounted to them how God saved them from that land of oppression and brought them to the land of grace. The author was very detailed and graphic in recounting the life history of the Jews. He reminds his Jewish listeners that their father was a wandering Aramean who went to Egypt with a small household but God, who can multiple something small, made them a mighty nation in the midst of the Egyptians’ maltreatment and oppression. He goes on to say that God took pity on Israel and redeemed them with his strong and outstretched arm. The story did not end there, he brought them to a country and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. The author sums up Israel’s story by stating that they were no people, poor and oppressed but God redeemed them and made them rich.

            Now God demands only one thing from them. God asked them that from all the blessings that he has blessed them with, they should remember to donate their first fruits so that those first fruits can be used to feed God’s poor children. He instructed them to give them to the priest so that he in turn share them with the poor in the community.

            My first advice based on today’s first reading goes to all God’s people. We are in the season of Lent and Church tradition calls on us to do charity, pray and fast. It beholds on us therefore to extend kindness to the poor among us. During Lent we celebrate God’s kindness by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die for us. If God can show this act of great kindness by sacrificing a royal’s life in exchange for the lives of slaves; then we can perform similar kind gestures. Let us save and donate to charitable houses so that the poor of God will be care for.

            My second advice goes to priests. In the first reading, the people were instructed to give their first fruits to the priest for onward delivery to the poor. Some priests have been doing very well in this regard. They even go a step further by caring for the poor out of their own means and whatever they receive for the poor, all gifts get to their destinations. But this is not the story for all priests. Some priests steal from the poor. What people give to them to give to the poor they pocket them. There is an African proverb that goes: “if one steals from the worm, it is the cobra that will chase the person to pay back.” Priests and pastors should not enrich themselves from donations to the poor.

            During this Lenten season, in every Catholic Church, there will be boxes for the poor, please don’t blindly pass them by. If God has been kind to us let us show kindness to our own kind.