This reflection on Mary comes from an unusual source — a new book on faith and its impact on the financial choices we make. The author, James Philipps, is a full-time teacher of religion at Cathedral High School, Manhattan, and an adjunct at Molloy College on Long Island.
God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
(from Mary’s Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55)
The reason that the rich get sent away empty by God is not because God hates rich people. God loves all of us. I’ve come to believe that the rich whom Mary refers to in her prayer of praise are sent away empty because there is simply no way that God can satisfy them. The more they accumulate, the more they want. Like the rich fool, they cannot hear the cry of the poor because the whine of their own wants is always in their ears.
Mary, loving mother of Jesus and of the church, can show us a better way. We only need to stand with her, and with all those who may have been overlooked by the world but are never overlooked by God.
Excerpted from Your Money or Your Life: 20 Sessions on Faith, Finances and the Choices We Make by James Philipps, published by Twenty-Third Publications. Copyright 2018; used with permission.