Our Master instructed us to pray: “Give us, this day, our daily bread”. There is a bread prepared for us for every day of our life. And we need to ask for it. Was He kidding? Do we trust Him?

Listen how we modified that prayer, of course, not in such blunt ways: “Give us, this day, our daily bread… and an extra one, just in case I do not satisfy my hunger!”; “Give us, this day, our daily bread… and give it to me first, for I hate waiting!”; “Give us, this day, our daily bread… and an extra one or two, for the days to come, to put my mind at rest that I will find food even tomorrow and the day after. You never know what happens; may be some strike!”; “Give us, this day, our daily bread… even if You need to mix with the numbers of the lottery to win the bread myself!”; (now some cruel versions, but challenge me that they are never prayed, if you will!) “Give us, this day, our daily bread… and keep wars and natural disasters away from our country. If they have to happen, let them happen, but not here!”; “Give us, this day, our daily bread… even if You need to call my parents, to inherit their bread!”.

Blessed Pope John XXIII used to say that God, before creating a new baby in the womb of his mother, he creates a bread for him! Then how is that, around the world, a human being dies every minute because of hunger? Could it be that the extra bread that I am holding, is the bread of one of them? And I justify myself in holding it by saying: “In case I do not find bread when I am hungry!” Of course, I know what I am saying: living amongst people who reason in the same way that I do, there is a great chance of being hungry and not finding bread!

So, why does not God provide me more bread when I ask for? Why does not God put my mind at rest and give me more bread, not only for today, but also for the days to come, as I do with money by saving it in a bank? And why does not God defend me when my brother is unjust with me and holds all the inheritance to himself? And why does not God come and mingle with our fights and wars campaigned by the mighty and the greedy at the expense of the week and the poor?

May be because God knows that there is nothing to choose between us! The greed of the rich will become the greed of the poor if “justice” be made. And would that solve the problem of poverty, or just change the actors? Do you call that “justice”?

So, does the problem of poverty lie in the rich? That is what Marx thought; and he created an ideology followed by a political system based on jealousy and hatred uprising of the poor against the rich. And when the poor did overcome and overturn the rich, did they behave any better? Was the problem of poverty and injustice solved? Before doing that, Marx eliminated God, because he was intelligent enough to understand that God was never going to agree with him.

If man does not respect himself, by discovering his true dignity, he will never respect anybody else, independent of whether he is rich or poor. It is this dignity that people like Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela understood. The were not afraid of poverty and suffering; but they neither envied or hated the rich. They overcame poverty by parting from their true dignity, and they overcame the rich by pointing at their true dignity. Discovering what it means that I am your brother and not a stranger to you; and discovering that you are my brother and not my enemy, even when you rise against me…. God is convinced that that will be the time when the problem of poverty starts to be solved! Do you believe that?