mads
in
catholicism
Bundle of Joy
With my wife seven months pregnant now, I'd had a lot of opportunity to ponder and reflect in a new light, specifically when meditating on the Joyful Mysteries. One in particular, the Nativity/Incarnation/Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ had always been especially mysterious to me because most every rosary literature I've found lists the fruit of this mystery as 'A spirit of poverty'.
The obvious reference of course is to the Holy Family, homeless and unwanted in their cave and manger, but that always felt rather lacking to me because, while the Holy Family was definitely in a pinch, they weren't exactly destitute as we've come to know the meaning of the term. I've since managed to see the bigger picture, where God made Himself eminently poor by becoming like us. What might be obvious to some, but was only recently revealed to me was that it goes even deeper than that-- that God made Himself unspeakably poor not just by becoming human, but by becoming a little baby.
It's at this point that I begin to lose a coherent train of thought and go mostly on associations. Things fall into place too fast for me to comprehend or express, but the connections are suddenly just there. It has been said that the poor are God's gift to us, because through them we can show our love for Jesus. This is why children are the most precious gift of marriage because it gives us an opportunity to exercise charity to the poorest of the poor-- an opportunity to exercise charity to Jesus himself. Children are, quite literally, the least of our brothers-- they own nothing, can say nothing, can do nothing-- and whatsoever we do to them, we do to Jesus. That is why the Kingdom belongs to them, the 'poor in spirit', and why we must be as little children-- because by doing so, we truly embody 'a spirit of poverty'.
And everybody, no matter how rich, knows what it is to be needy, to be cold and helpless, to be in want of everything, though they may not remember. Anybody who has been a little child knows what it is to be poor.
Are these licit interpretations? Is there anything anyone might want to add? I'm no theologian, and don't have a whole lot of avenue to discuss these things in my social circle, and I am keenly aware that my thoughts need guidance, tempering, and refinement, if not outright redirection.
The obvious reference of course is to the Holy Family, homeless and unwanted in their cave and manger, but that always felt rather lacking to me because, while the Holy Family was definitely in a pinch, they weren't exactly destitute as we've come to know the meaning of the term. I've since managed to see the bigger picture, where God made Himself eminently poor by becoming like us. What might be obvious to some, but was only recently revealed to me was that it goes even deeper than that-- that God made Himself unspeakably poor not just by becoming human, but by becoming a little baby.
It's at this point that I begin to lose a coherent train of thought and go mostly on associations. Things fall into place too fast for me to comprehend or express, but the connections are suddenly just there. It has been said that the poor are God's gift to us, because through them we can show our love for Jesus. This is why children are the most precious gift of marriage because it gives us an opportunity to exercise charity to the poorest of the poor-- an opportunity to exercise charity to Jesus himself. Children are, quite literally, the least of our brothers-- they own nothing, can say nothing, can do nothing-- and whatsoever we do to them, we do to Jesus. That is why the Kingdom belongs to them, the 'poor in spirit', and why we must be as little children-- because by doing so, we truly embody 'a spirit of poverty'.
And everybody, no matter how rich, knows what it is to be needy, to be cold and helpless, to be in want of everything, though they may not remember. Anybody who has been a little child knows what it is to be poor.
Are these licit interpretations? Is there anything anyone might want to add? I'm no theologian, and don't have a whole lot of avenue to discuss these things in my social circle, and I am keenly aware that my thoughts need guidance, tempering, and refinement, if not outright redirection.