REFLECTION
“If each kept only what is required for his [or her] current needs, and left the surplus for the needy, wealth and poverty would be abolished. . . . The bread you keep belongs to another who is starving, the coat that lies in your chest is stolen from the naked, the shoes that rot in your house are stolen from the person who goes unshod, the money you laid aside is stolen from the poverty-stricken. In this way, you are the oppressors of as many people as you could help. No, it is not your rapaciousness that is condemned, but your refusal to share” (St. Basil the Great).
What do you own that could be given away? How might you go about doing this?

PRAYER
Guardian of the Oppressed People, the weight of repressive poverty can be eased if persons like myself help to bear the burden. Turn my eyes, my heart, and my hands in their direction.

SCRIPTURE TO CARRY IN YOUR HEART TODAY
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45).

Joyce Rupp in Boundless Compassion