James (sounding, actually, very much like Pope Francis in some of his rather direct summations of
things) warns against giving preferential treatment to the great ones of this world. He describes (at length) the way we can fawn over a social notable, while dismissing the poor. In the words of today's Gospel, this is "thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do." And James helps us "think as God does" when he reminds us that God "chooses the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom."
Pope Francis takes up where James left off. The whole of the Pope's Lenten message is about the spirit of poverty, and in that, about thinking as God thinks: "He does not reveal himself cloaked in worldly power and wealth but rather in weakness and poverty: 'though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor …'."
If you haven't read Pope Francis' Lenten message yet, the time is now: Ash Wednesday is just a week and half away! You'll be impressed with Pope Francis' complete vision of the kinds of poverty in the world, what the Christian spirit of poverty is, and how the Gospel is the antidote for "spiritual destitution."
This Lent, may each of us put on the mind of Christ, and begin to really, consistently, "think as God thinks."
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