Meditation for January 4, The Shepherds and the Magi

Jesus between the rich and the poor! He reaches out His hand to save both the one and the other. The poor arrive sooner be­cause they are nearer and have fewer obstacles to overcome. The Magi come from afar; they must cross mountains and traverse extensive plains.

An angel is sent to the shepherds, only a star to the Magi; as though God wanted to show more honor to those who are least in the eyes of the world.

What folly to wish to separate the poor and the rich or to pit them one against the other. Both have access to the cross of the Savior; the poor, to learn to bear their poverty; the rich, to learn to detach themselves from their wealth for the sake of the poor.

Let the poor take courage from the example of our Lord suffering privations. To deny that Christ endured privations would be to deny the whole Gospel, from Bethlehem to Calvary; that does not mean, however, that Christ denounces those who possess more of this world's goods.

First of all, the goods of the earth are of little account, and secondly, those who possess them have a weighty responsibility; the care of their brethren is incumbent upon them and on the last day they must answer for the use of their goods. The account will be exacting as is only just.

But besides this lesson for the human race as a whole, what special lesson does this mystery hold for me?

If the poor are the Savior's favorites, I know how to become one of His elite. The more I am detached, the more Jesus of the manger will recognize me as His own. Even in religious life, where poverty is not only proper but required, one can be rich. And might it not be to purify religious from all dross of attachment to worldly goods that, from time to time, a persecution comes to snatch everything from those who have formally vowed poverty?

I must not wait to be forcibly expelled from my convent to live poor. My poverty must not come from circumstances, but from love.
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Adapted from Meditations for Religious
by Father Raoul Plus, S.J. (© 1939, Frederick Pustet Co.)