Friday, May 28, 2010

Deut 15, 11 Open your hand to your poor kinsman

Deuteronomy 15 (chosen pages)

(Deut 15, 11) Open your hand to your poor kinsman

[11] The needy will never be lacking in the land; that is why I command you to open your hand to your poor and needy kinsman in your country.

(CCC 2449) Beginning with the Old Testament, all kinds of juridical measures (the jubilee year of forgiveness of debts, prohibition of loans at interest and the keeping of collateral, the obligation to tithe, the daily payment of the day-laborer, the right to glean vines and fields) answer the exhortation of Deuteronomy: "For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land'" (Deut 15:11). Jesus makes these words his own: "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me" (Jn 12:8). In so doing he does not soften the vehemence of former oracles against "buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…," but invites us to recognize his own presence in the poor who are his brethren (Am 8:6; cf. Mt 25:40): When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at home, St. Rose of Lima said to her: "When we serve the poor and the sick, we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus (P. Hansen, Vita mirabilis (Louvain, 1668).

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