Sense of Suffciency - Sign of Sanctity

WORD 2day : Saturday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 21, 2025: 2 Corinthians 12: 1-10; Matthew 6: 24-34

The rich and the poor, the affluent and the needy, the influential and the ordinary... they seem to be no different from each other! They wish for more and more and more. And at no point in their life they seem to have a sense of sufficiency. People with thousand pairs of footwears, a couple or more of private jets, scores of floors in more than a few apartments, are known facts today; and at a more ordinary level, people with a few cellphones and scores of sim cards, cupboard full of dresses and loads of wasted food... these are no rare sights too! There is no saying "enough," for the human mind today, or has it been so for all times?

St. Paul today explains the importance of the attitude of saying enough, the sense of sufficiency and considers it a sign of sanctity. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul considers himself 'blessed' with a sense of sufficiency, in plenty and in want (Phil 4: 11,12). In our families, in our personal lives, in our social life, in our religious communities... where does this virtue stand?

Be it Indian traditional spirituality, Western monastic spirituality, Eastern yogic spirituality... everywhere there is a strong point made for detachment, possessing less and learning to live with the minimum! Where do all these spiritualities go, in spite of the highly religious people who live! And the so called people of the religion, are precisely the ones who goad wealth, create a culture of promiscuity and indulge in frivolities unheard of - not many exceptions there, unfortunately!

And above all, the sense of sufficiency comes from and is a fruit of gratitude, a sense of having received enough and in abundance from God. Gratitude is a sign of a sense of sufficiency that one feels with God; and this sense of sufficiency, is obviously therefore, a sure sign of sanctity.