Abbondanza

This week’s Gospel reading is John 10:1-10. The last phrase is “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” In Italian, the language of my ancestors, the word for abundance is “abbondanza”. My grandparents used it as a word wishing abundance, joy, and celebration.

I know that many of us are feeling that we are not in a time of abundance. Many of us are truly in a place of loss. Loss of income. A feeling of impotence. A time of isolation. A time of mourning. For people in that condition, we should pray and offer whatever help we can. Unfortunately, our present circumstances are limiting even how we help and comfort each other.

But I want to offer prayers and turn our thoughts to those who never know abundance, and to think about how we speak and think. In some way, the more well-to-do countries are saying to the world, “Look at our plight. We are suffering from rampant disease. We are becoming poorer. We are experience death in an indiscriminate and unjust way, and there is little help.”

However, that has long been the plight of the much of the world. I am not saying that our losses are not real losses. Individuals and their families are suffering, and that is horrible. But as a country, perhaps we are reacting in a way that demonstrates our failure to think of the poorer nations and what they have experienced for many, many years.

This is a time to think of the suffering that has engulfed the poorer countries for decades, centuries, millennia. Maybe our mission in the future will be to make sure as much of the world as possible experiences abbondanza.

             - - The Older Brother