Evangelical Economics

Today’s gospel: Jesus asked, “How many loaves do you have?” “Seven and some fish”…They all ate and were full and the fragments were over 7 baskets full.

The teachers in our school were not too keen about again adopting, for Christmas, a family of 14 children: “I wouldn’t give…It is irresponsible and immoral to have a family that large… He should keep it in his pants…It is unfair to the woman… Why don’t we pay for a vasectomy?” They do not know the family we adopted last year but the indignation, anger and rush to accusation were irrepressible. The verdict was in: guilty of sexual incontinency, irresponsibility, wife abuse, and general immorality.

By a strange coincidence, I happen to know the couple with the 14 children. They are young, very attractive, intelligent, self-confident, and hard working. I only wish I had half of the faith and generosity they demonstrate. They have traveled as missionaries, with all their children, and are leaders in the Neocatechumenal Way. Their children interact happily with other large families and find themselves traveling all over the world in pilgrimage and mission experiences. They live simply, on austere budgets, with a great deal of joy and hope.

Clearly, we are dealing here with two contrasting Catholic cultures. The first is characterized by anxiety about scarce resources, accusation, a resentment against the male, suspicion of sexual oppression, and indignant anger. This complex is coming out of the affluent, contraceptive culture into which our Catholic population was baptized and catechized starting in the late 1960s.

By contrast, we see a traditional Catholic culture of generosity, simplicity and faith. Large families share with the consecrated life an intuitive sense of Evangelical Economics: The more the merrier! God will provide! Do not be anxious! Marvelous economies of synergy and abundance spontaneously emerge in such environments: hand-me-downs; tons of gratitude; delegation as older siblings care for the younger.

Where Jesus is present, there always is abundance