Tuesday, May 17, 2016

5/19/2016 – Thursday of the 7th week in Ordinary Time – James 5:1-6

     Today, in a continuation from the letter of James, we hear James criticize the rich. But, if we delve deeply into the message of today’s reading, we see how according to James, the real sin of the rich is not just that they store wealth for themselves, but that they have become wealthy at the expense of others who were deprived of their most basic needs. Specifically, James mentions the wages that the rich withhold from the workers who harvest the fields of the rich.  Just this week, I was reading an article about an electric car company based in California called Tesla.  The company’s owner, a man named Elon Musk who is originally from South Africa, is worth over $12 billion and is considered one the one hundred richest men in the United States.  His company has gotten a lot of subsidies from the US taxpayers in order to produce these very expensive electric cars, most of which are produced by the elite and the wealthy.  Yet, the company is accused of having built a new paint factory for their cars in northern California using subcontractors and paying foreign workers from Eastern Europe to build the factory wages of less than $5 an hour and with little benefits or overtime pay.  Some of the models of cars that Tesla makes cost more than $100,000.  Since Pope Francis became pope, he has spoke a lot about the rights of workers and the inequality of wages in the world.  He also speaks frequently on how we priests should live a simple life and how we should not be attached to riches or the material things of the world.  In fact, his harsh words have not only influenced me to reflect upon this in my own lifestyle as a priest, it has really affected my morale as a priest in a very negative way.  I thought about the missionary priests I knew in Ecuador who literally go without eating meals because they have no resources with which to buy food, about priests in our own diocese who pay a lot of their own expenses out their own pockets rather than asking to be reimbursed by their parish.  Are we too attached to the material things of this world?  Do we oppress others in order to get ahead ourselves?  Or are the values we live by rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? 

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