‘The culture of prosperity deadens us’

Based on a study by Oxford Online of the most popular English words, “I” ranks as the 10th most popular (“the” is number one) while “we” ranks 27th.

In one of the last Christmas novena Masses I attended, I was lucky to participate in the celebration of  Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara (a classmate of mine in college). Since the novena Masses aim to prepare us spiritually, Bishop Mylo focused on three words starting with the letter “I” which prevents us from being better Christians. These are individualism, indifference, and insensitivity.

They are also all inter-related. When you only think of yourself and put yourself and your interests ahead all the time, then you become indifferent to the needs of people around you. You become insensitive to others. You become callous and you wash your hands clean of any involvement in the sad plight of others or of any obligation to be of help.

Are the people who live this way happy? Or do they feel empty and bored? That was exactly what Fr. Jett Villarin, president of the Ateneo, said in a Christmas novena homily. Teenagers nowadays feel bored despite all the gadgets and recreational options they have.

So, what do we do? Simple as it may seem, someone said it is easy to have joy in your heart. In fact, the way to achieve it is spelled out clearly. You have to put Jesus first, followed by others, then yourself last.

The “I” transformed can be involved and a source of inspiration and positive influence. A very good example of that is the new Catholic pope, Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio or Pope Francis.

He was recently named by Time magazine as “Person of the Year 2013” and Time managing editor Nancy Gibbs explained why: “How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly — young and old, faithful and cynical — as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.

“At a time when the limits of leadership are being tested in so many places, along comes a man with no army or weapons, no kingdom beyond a tight fist of land in the middle of Rome but with the immense wealth and weight of history behind him, to throw down a challenge. The world is getting smaller; individual voices are getting louder; technology is turning virtue viral, so his pulpit is visible to the ends of the earth. When he kisses the face of a disfigured man or washes the feet of a Muslim woman, the image resonates far beyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church.

“The heart is a strong muscle; he’s proposing a rigorous exercise plan. And in a very short time, a vast, global, ecumenical audience has shown a hunger to follow him. For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world’s largest church to confronting its deepest needs and for balancing judgment with mercy, Pope Francis is Time’s 2013 Person of the Year.”

He must be one of the most quoted popes in modern history; below is a favorite one about individualism, indifference, and insensitivity. Pope Francis explained, “To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”

Following the same tone, here was his message to the United Nations on World Food Day: “It is a scandal that there is still hunger and malnutrition in the world! Not only must we respond to immediate emergencies, but face together, at all levels, a problem that challenges our personal and social awareness, to bring about a just and lasting solution. Nobody should be forced to leave their land and their cultural environment for lack of the essential means of subsistence! Paradoxically, at a time when globalization makes it possible to know of the situations of need in the world and increase exchanges and human relationships, the tendency to individualism and profit at all costs seems to be growing, which leads to an attitude of indifference — on a personal level as well as that of institutions and states — to those who die of hunger or suffer malnutrition , as if it were an inescapable fact. But hunger and malnutrition can never be considered a normal occurrence that we should be become used to, as if it were part of the system.

“Something must change in ourselves, in our minds, in our societies. What can we do? I think one important step is to decidedly break down the barriers of individualism, of closure, our slavery to profit at all costs and this not only in the dynamics of human relationships, but also in the global economic and financial dynamics. I think it is necessary now more than ever to educate ourselves to solidarity, to rediscover the value and meaning of this word which is so uncomfortable and very often left on the sidelines, and see that it becomes the basic attitude of choices which govern the political, economic, and financial relations between people and between nations. Only through concrete solidarity can selfish views and partisan interests be overcome and the goal of eliminating certain forms of poverty from lack of food finally be achieved. A solidarity that is not reduced to the various forms of assistance, but that works to ensure that an increasing number of people can be financially independent. Many strides forward have been made in different countries, but we are still far from a world in which everyone can live with dignity.”

While a lot of lives were lost in the calamities our nation recently suffered, one can’t help but think that this is a wake-up call. This is a call to be involved in making lives better, in inspiring action in our own circles, and in influencing others to do good for the betterment of all.

* * *

Post me a note at mylene@goldsgym.com.ph or mylenedayrit@gmail.com.