Jn 12, 7-8 You always have the poor with you

(Jn 12, 7-8) You always have the poor with you

[7] So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. [8] You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

(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)]. (CCC 2425) The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with "communism" or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor (Cf. CA 10; 13; 44). Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market" (CA 34). Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended. (CCC 2433) Access to employment and to professions must be open to all without unjust discrimination: men and women, healthy and disabled, natives and immigrants (Cf. LE 19; 22-23). For its part society should, according to circumstances, help citizens find work and employment (Cf. CA 48).