Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
(Proverbs 30:5-9; Luke 9:1-6)
A short story tells of a young couple of modest means. They attend a lower-class Protestant church, perhaps Baptist, with devotion. As years pass, the couple becomes wealthier and their tastes change. They find themselves socializing with different people and following these people to higher brow churches – a progression something like from Methodism to Presbyterianism to Anglicanism. Eventually, the woman dies and the man (if I remember the story correctly) chooses not to have a church funeral. The man, at least, has lost his faith in Jesus.
The reading from Proverbs today reminds us to ask God for sufficiency, not for wealth or poverty. Riches tend to make one forget about God as the short story attests. Although the poor are said to attract God’s concern, poverty is hardly desirable in itself. As Proverbs indicate, it may cause loss of trust in God’s providence. “In medio virtus stat” (virtue stands in the middle), the scholastics taught. We are best off neither rich nor poor but with just enough so that we do not forget both to thank God for today’s bread and to ask Him for tomorrow’s.
