FROM MY HEART TO YOUR HEART – The Sins of the Poor

Brought to you by Fr. Bernardino Andrade

(bernardinodandrade@gmail.com)

A SIN OF A CUP OF COFFEE AND A PASTRY

Ricardina is one of the poorest ladies that is being helped by the People Helping People project. She is a walking skeleton especially after her husband left her after years of physical abuse. Even if she has a job in a cleaning business, with a very small salary, she owes money to the bank and a substantial part of her salary is taken every month. Ricardina takes lots of psychiatric pills, has a house rent to pay, two daughters to feed and other basic necessities. There are days when she has made between twenty to thirty phone calls to Dalila from the People Helping People project (PHP), even if she has been told many times to relax, that the help she needs will be given. Then another phone call to say «I am sorry but I am calling just to remind you…».

But one day, Ricardina was caught committing a terrible sin. Somebody saw her in a coffee shop drinking a cup of coffee and eating a pastry. What a terrible sin! … A few people approached us saying that she was a cheat; she was not poor because she had been seen in a coffee shop enjoying a cup of coffee and eating a pastry. And, according to them, a cup of coffee is not a basic necessity. It is a luxury. The coordinator of People Helping People was present at the time and she was the one who intervened in Ricardina’s defense just saying: «If Ricardina has been seen drinking a cup of coffee it was because either Fr. Bernardino or I paid for it». I am glad nobody told Ricardina to go to Confession. Then I was the one who tried to explain the difference between judgment and love. «When you start by judging you have no time to love»

A SIN OF BEAUTIFUL FINGERNAILS

Dulce is another divorced lady with two teenagers. Divorce, in the words of a friend of mine who experienced that tragedy, is a passport to poverty. Her husband is living in England and she is living in Madeira with her two children in the country side, away from Funchal. Her son is taking pills for psychiatric health problems. It is amazing to see the quantity of children and teenagers who are taking pills for psychiatric reasons. This kind of medication, that is very expensive, is entirely paid by the users. The government doesn’t give any kind of subsidy for this.

One day, Dulce’s daughter received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Her mother decided to give her a little party and committed a «terrible sin». We gave her a small and inexpensive cake, but Dulce went to a manicurist and painted her fingernails. She went to church and took some pictures. That day was very special for her and her children. What a scandal. The news went around. I think that half of the island decided that Dulce was a «cheat». She was receiving help from People Helping People (PHP) but she had had money to paint her fingernails! Another big sin of the poor. Some people stopped helping our project PHP because we were “wasting money” with people who didn’t «deserve» to be helped. If you are poor you have to be, and to look poor, twenty four hours a day. You have no right not even to take care of your fingernails at least once in your lifetime.

A SIN OF BUYING A «LUXURY» ITEM WITH FOOD STAMPS

A grocery store check-out clerk once wrote to advice-columnist Ann Landers to complain that she had seen people buy «luxury» food items like birthday cakes and bags of shrimp – with their food stamps. The writer went on to say she thought all those people on welfare who treated themselves to such non-necessities were «lazy and wasteful». A few weeks later, Lander’s column was devoted entirely to people who had responded to the grocery clerk: «I am the woman who bought the 17 dollars cake and paid for it with food stamps. I thought the check-out woman in the store would burn a hole through me with her eyes. What she didn’t know is that the cake was for my little girl’s birthday. It will be her last. She has bone cancer and will probably be gone within six to eight months».

THE «VIRTUES» OF THE RICH

About two weeks ago, the newspapers published this «modest» news about the most famous football player in the world, who happens to be Portuguese, born in Madeira Island:
«One more car in the garage. He bought a new Rolls Royce Cullinan for 700.000 Euros». He was applauded and praised.
I believe that we have many «sins of the poor» because we have many «virtues of the rich».
«Poverty exists not because we are not able to feed the poor, but because we are not able to satisfy the rich». (Anonymous)

Love and Peace,
Fr. Bernardino Andrade