Christ for All
Today’s Gospel reading of Lk.4:21-30, teaches us that Christ came for all of us. Christ is inclusive and welcomes everyone. During the sermon at Church this morning Fr. Paulino Miranda highlighted this teaching and went on to impress upon the congregation that the poorest people in Malaysia are not any of the communities that migrated from other lands over the past hundreds of years, but the Natives of Peninsular Malaysia.
Year after year we collect money from all the parishioners of all parishes in Malaysia for charity and especially for building churches. However, we have never conducted a campaign for the development of the marginalized of society, especially the Natives. We may provide them with charitable aid, in the form of food and clothing and possibly housing but we don’t help them elevate themselves from poverty. In short we don’t teach them to fish as we give them the fish. Merely giving fish will only perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty. Giving them basic necessities is not to be neglected as Christ himself fed the 5000 hungry who listened to his teachings.
Fr. Miranda proposes we set aside funds for the development of the marginalized. The only effective way to eradicate poverty is to emancipate the poor. We can achieve this by helping them fund activities that will bring in economic benefits eventually. This reminds me of the micro-credit facilities that were pioneered by Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.
There are foundations in Malaysia that focus on developing the poor but the majority of Malaysian Catholics are ignorant of them. Examples are the Monfort Boys Town that helps educate very poor boys and girls of any religious affiliation. There is also the example of the Indonesian Catholic Bishops who provide funds to allow Muslim tsunami survivors to attend university. Malaysian Catholics must be educated on the need to provide for such activities and be actively involved in them as well.
Let’s remember that a church building is for faith formation and the faith that’s formed has to fruitful. The fruits of faith are love as without love we are nothing as 1 Cor.12:31-13:13 reminds us.
