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We are using these beautiful reflections for our meetings and are very happy with them. I must congratulate all of you personally and on behalf of our Conference for the great effort you have displayed in getting this organized. These
prayers and reflections are very valuable materials for our
spiritual knowledge and guidance. We thank you
wholeheartedly for this great contribution. God
bless all of you, |
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THE
NEW POOR If
we ask any person: who is the poor? They think the answer is
easy, because we are accustomed to seeing them asking for
money in the hallways of buildings, sleeping in the parks,
some without homes or living in neighborhoods where the
homes are small and with many problems, or in structures in
disrepair. For those that have visited foreign countries,
are accustomed to seeing the poor begging at the churches’
yards and near large buildings. These are the persons we
call poor. Also,
we also have other types of poor: those that are
marginalized by society, those that maybe do not speak our
language, or those that due to their low educational level
are forced to work receiving a miserable pay, or those that
can not obtain work at all; and for these reasons fall into
the category of poor. But
the poor we are making reference here is not in any of those
categories mentioned above. They are persons that have work,
may be no one job, but two …without taking into
consideration that their wives may also work, but even with
two salaries they can not meet all their obligations. Times
have changed, everything costs more: gasoline, the basic
service of electricity, phone, water, etc. Everything is in
a climbing spiral of costs; on the other hand, salaries have
remained the same or with a little increase. Note that the
national minimum wage does not correspond to the real cost
of living! Today, a $20,000 a year salary is considered at
the poverty level for a family of four. These people are
hard workers that try everything in the fight for survival,
they are good parents, they keep the laws; but they do not
qualify for any help program…even though they are truly
poor. Let us not forget that 37 million people live in this
type of poverty in the United States. We
in the Saint Vincent de Paul Society really know who the
poor are, because it is our duty to deal everyday with
really hurtful cases of families without food, that can not
meet their responsibilities of rent and other basics
services, that can not adequately cloth their children so
that may go to school properly attired. In many occasions,
we have visited homes that in other times were happy homes
and today they have changed into a real chaos of
necessities. And these people not accustomed to begging, in
many instances they just do not do it… and it is our duty
to find them, and to reach to them to remedy their
situations… at least some of their tribulations. We are
perhaps the only way that their voice can be heard, we are
the true vehicle of the poor’s voice. Clearly
we do not have the solution to all problems, because such a
great decease can not be cured with bandages of instant
help. These bandages only calm the sufferings of the moment,
but later they continue….as life continues. We must make
demands from our politicians, and take to the public
conscience the need to formulate plans to stabilize the
working society. We can not continue paying ridiculous
salaries.
We need to increase the minimum salary and this we
must demand of our representatives and senators in Congress.
We all know that transport to our work place cost us now
three times what cost us a few years ago, and it is the same
with food, clothing, rent, and all the basic services….and
all our daily needs. The family food bill is much higher
today than just a short time ago, and nobody lifts their
voices in accusation. We never hear the President or any
politician talk about poverty. Like if it was a word that
has been taken out of our dictionaries or completely
forgotten.
We
can not just watch while our families loose their economic
status reaching towards the limits of poverty, while we do
nothing o simply avert our eyes towards other things. Each
day public funds are misspent, funds that we all contribute
to with our taxes. We all can watch in horror our government
leaders waste that money in investments that do not help our
working class; that is without taking into consideration the
monies they use without paying any attention to the needs of
economic recovery projects. It
is now time to present the bill to them, without looking at
parties or political preferences. We must think about our
neighbors, our brothers. We no longer believe the infantile
tales they tell us of help to the elder, shelters o programs
invented for some to make a living. Every time they create a
help program it has a great number of employees and
directors attached, earning them astronomical salaries. For
every dollar these programs collect, supposedly for the
poor, thirty to forty cents are lost towards administrative
costs! It would be very productive for these people to take
a look at our Society of Saint Vincent de Paul where all
that work to help the poor do so on a voluntary basis, with
no pay, only with the desire to eliminate the suffering in
so many of our homes. However, the politicians do not
likewise; instead they spend years in positions of
leadership with no results….and, we are not capable of
changing the situation with our vote! You
have the obligation to change all this. Let us not turn our
head away, let us try to return a little to God who takes
care of us every day. Let us sacrifice and give until it
hurts! But also let’s do something about recalling our
rights and let us denounce the little interest that our
politicians have in addressing the poor. We all should talk
to them about the poor, we should all sacrifice for them;
but most importantly we must stop the frenetic fall our
society towards poverty, because if we do not stop it, we
shall make the world into a small island of rich people
surrounded by a sea of poor. Victor
Martell President
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