Not by bread alone...

THE complete text is “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word of God.” (Lk 4,4) We need to remember these words to keep ourselves in stable course as we encounter situations that tend to blow us up emotionally.

            Everytime, for example, I see beggars in the streets, showing en flagrante their utter helplessness and severe penury, I automatically feel devastated. At the back of my mind would play the refrain repeatedly, “Life is so unfair! Why is life so unfair?”

            Then some guilt-driven questions invade me. “What have I done for them? Have I remembered them all the time? Can I give them something now?” And then the most painful question comes. “Have I contributed in any way to their misfortune?”

            It’s the thought that I may have been a culprit in this spreading predicament, even if only unknowingly, that causes me great grief. I somehow end up realizing that, yes, I for sure have something to do with that problem, and now I have to do something about it.

            We are told that the poor will always be around. Christ himself said so. “The poor you will have always with you,” he said, “but me you have not always.” (Mt 26,10) The context of these words was when someone criticized Jesus for allowing a woman to pour an expensive ointment which could have sold and the money given to the poor.

            These words somehow put in proper perspective our attitude to all the forms of poverty we see around—from beggars to the homeless to the sick and handicapped to the ignorant and proud, etc.

            While it is always praiseworthy to attend to the immediate and material needs of the poor, we also need to realize that we have to go beyond that dimension of concern. A Chinese proverb already can give us a clue. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

            We need educate the poor. This has long-term effects. We have to equip them with skills, making use of whatever talent and potential they have. For sure, there must be something still useful and potentially productive in them.

            I have been privy to many heart-warming success stories of young boys from underprivileged families who, when given formation and skills, end up becoming productive workers and making a drastic improvement in the conditions of their families.

            Yes, sweat and tears, and sometimes blood, went into all the effort these poor young boys had to exert to better their lot in life. But in the end, they themselves would say, “It was all worthwhile.” And they look proud for what they had accomplished.

            Still, we have to remember that helping the poor is not just a matter of relieving their material needs. It’s the spiritual needs that are more important and should never be ignored.

            “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word of God.” We need to nourish them with faith. We need to help them develop a healthy spiritual life. Thus, they should be given not only “the food which perishes” but also “the food which endures unto life everlasting.”

            We may have to recast our whole attitude toward the poor, because very often we frame it in a rather narrow, shallow and distorted way, often entangled in the emotional dramatics without giving due attention to the whole picture of the issue.

            It is in this context that we will realize that we are all actually poor, because whether we are economically rich or poor, socially lucky or unlucky, physically blessed or cursed, we are all in need of God.

            This is what is called poverty in spirit that is highlighted in one of the beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.” It’s actually a poverty to look forward to, to develop and nurture, because it’s a poverty proper to us, the poverty that makes us yearn for God, that never lets us think we already have enough of what we need.

            So, let’s be wary also of the sound and fury contrived by some ideological groups that seek to restrict our understanding of poverty to the merely material and temporal aspects.

            We should not neglect these aspects, of course, but neither should we be trapped there. We need to go beyond. This is the real reaching out to the poor that we ought to be doing.