Today I want to reflect on the poverty of God. How does G od actually act and govern the world? If you want to find out what people are really like, just live with them for a few weeks. If people treat others poorly, it probably means that ‘hurting people hurt people.”
When we have too much religion, or are too comfortable in our religious convictions, our interpretation of the personality of God is very comfortable. Too much religion means that God will never upset us; and he will never challenge us!
Go back to the message that the angel (a worker-bee in God’s world) comes to Mary: young, illiterate and without power. She is a woman: a little one in that society. Now God comes to the person at the bottom (i.e., without power) and asks this young woman to become mother. God asks the impossible, and she accepts.
Mary recognizes what God is doing. “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1:52-53). Those whom the world regards as powerful, skillful and the people you should ask to get things done, are passed over. The rich are sent away!
Recognize how this is so counter cultural. Those whom society thinks are important are passed over. God chooses the unimportant: a young woman in the backwoods of the world.
This is what God is like at the very center. God comes to us in littleness, in poverty. God’s actions upset so many people, and sincere believers at that!
As Pope Leo encourages believers and humanity to turn toward the poor, he is making explicit what God is in reality. God will be God and act like God—no matter how upsetting it might b to so many successful human beings (by human standards).
This papal exhortation, Dilexi te, stems directly from the very life and heart of God. If God turns towards the poor, so should all the believers turn toward the poor in their own societies.
Born Catholics and Orthodox Christiaens have a strong devotion toward Mary. She is always one of us human beings. She sets the standard for how God is working. God comes among the working poor to bring about the great event of salvation: the revelation of the life and mercy of God in the human skin of Jesus. Mary says yes to God’s way of working.
God begins the event of salvation by upsetting humanity.
He does not choose the powerful and the famous persons.
Now, apply Mary to yourself. Are you not one of the little ones of this world? Reflect how God has chosen you to bring about the redemption of human beings. What great things of God’s plan is meant to work through your life?
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