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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