The economy of the Kingdom is based on the logic of give oneself to others, explained the co-founder of the Shalom Catholic Community, Emmir Nogueira, during the course “The secret of the Divine Providence”. According to Emmir, Jesus reveals the Father’s / God’s mentality, the way in which He governs His house. “Jesus brings in his preaching and in his life the mentality of giving oneself. The secret is to always give. The Son who gives from Himself to enrich Himself from His poverty. The logic unveiled in the beatitudes is the logic of always giving to our neighbour, empty ourselves so that our neighbour may live. This is the core of the oikonomia (divine economy, meaning constantly sharing), of the mentality of the kingdom of the Father”, she explained.
According to Emmir, the deformed logic of the world created an untrustworthy mentality of the Father. The trust in God has been deposited in goods, which in turn has hindered our ability to share. “Today we live in a society without a father. The figure of the father as someone weak, who no longer commands his own household. The materialistic philosophers have spread the father’s death, and psychology says that it is necessary to kill the father, in order to become an adult. This has formed in our mentality a massive distrust in the Father. My Heavenly Father, who gave his Son, so that I could live, is no longer worthy of my trust nowadays. I rather trust in my own goods than on my Father. The way of the Kingdom is the opposite of all that has been mentioned. I have a Father, and because of this, I can trust all aspects of my life, essentially and exclusively, the sharing of my belongings, my goods”.
“When we entered into a new community our dream was based on Acts 2 and Acts 4, which say that christians had everything in common. A single heart and a single soul. No one considered what they possessed to be exclusively theirs, but everything for them was put in the common good. With great power, the apostles bared witness to the Lord. There was not a single needy individual among them. Is it possible for us, the baptised, to take more decisive steps towards developing this type of relationship with our brother and sister? Is it possible for my conversion to be so deep that I will adopt the way of God who entrusted creation to me so that there would be no needy among us?”, she enquired.
The trust in the Father leads to the sharing of life and goods, explained the co-founder. “We either walk firmly towards the sharing of life and the sharing of goods or we won’t be living the Gospel. Our goods are either put to the service of others or they have no sense”. She continued, “when we use our goods as a way of giving our lives, as a sign of sharing; when I understand that the sharing of goods is a spiritual matter, my life begins to change”.
Meditating upon chapter six of the Gospel of St. Matthew, Emmir explains that Jesus reveals prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as a way of relating with the Father, who sees the secret. “Your Father, who sees in secret will reward you. What the Lord wants from us commences with an intimate life with Him. What He wants to find in us is an interior life, without which everything will be superficial. We firstly need to talk about the interior life, a life deeply immersed in God.”
When God entrusted the living creatures to His children, He made them also channels of His Divine Providence. “God is the primary cause and He hopes that we will be secondary causes in His creation. God is the one who initiates all self-giving, the whole logic of the Gospel. However, it is up to me to become the secondary cause of the Divine Providence to my brother/sister. I am responsible for by brother/sister in everything.”
“If we manage our life, and our goods in accordance to pagan and idolatrous concepts we are not living the Gospel. For Jesus to be the Lord, He has to be the centre and everything has to converge towards Him. When everything connects in Him, everything becomes a self-giving of my life to the Cross and Resurrection”. Finalising, “if our lives are self-giving, which is the most important, by doing so how can we give our lives if not by self-giving everything that we have? how can we not offer all things? Let us have courage to pray and to teach our children that it is possible to not have needy among us. Ask Jesus for a conversion of our hearts and the conversion of our wallets, which in the end are the same thing”.