Motivation of the week 27th January 2019 by Rev. Fr. Raymond Osei Tutu

An elderly widow, a scavenger who roamed the streets in tattered rags looking for bottles and junk, died! She was a familiar sight to people in her neighbourhood as she walked along their streets. After she died, the police went to her little room and found a letter to a close Pianist friend in which the widow told the friend how she wanted her funeral—no flowers nor any extravagance. The friend was further directed to a little red box in the widow’s room, where there was enough money to pay for her funeral and other charitable works in the future.

In the box were endorsed cheques with entries totalling about $60,000 in savings accounts, along with a key to a safe deposit box. When the friend opened the safe deposit box, there was more than $70,000 in cash. The widow lived in poverty when she could have enjoyed a much higher standard of living. On the other hand, many who would not live a poverty-stricken life physically live a poverty-stricken life mentally and morally. For example, I can go into LinkedIn and search for network engineers and come up with a list of great spear-phishing targets. Then I go onto Twitter or Facebook and trick these persons into doing something in their fields, and I have disappointing outputs. What a two-faced World!

All of us in many respects are administrators of wealth and opportunities of life, yet we pride ourselves as though all were gained by our own sweat. Indeed, what in life did we not inherit except our personal sins.

This administrator of the “poor” widow’s wealth, like us, had inherited a fortune but not her Poverty of Spirit. With money now at her disposal she pursued as a pianist her cherished dream to visit the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, Germany to see Beethoven’s piano from which he had composed some of his greatest works! The administrator asked the museum guard if she might play a few notes on it. To help persuade the guard, she also slipped him a lavish tip. The guard agreed, and she went to the piano and played the opening of the Moonlight Sonata. As she was leaving she said to the guard, “I suppose all the great pianists who come here want to play on that piano.” The guard shook his head and said, “Paderewski, the famous Polish pianist was here a few years ago, and he said he wasn’t worthy to touch it.”

Poverty of spirit is certainly not something that comes naturally to us, and it is not a quality that is celebrated in our time and culture. Yet it is the first Beatitude: Beautiful-Attitude!

May your Week not be Weak but with Him! I send you my prayerful wishes for the week. (By Fr. Ray® VR.it)*

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