Quota (Results) vs. Pledges (Fruitfulness)

In recent homilies Bishop Zurek has made it clear that the standard for love and unity in our diocese should be the encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti. Today, let’s reflect on paragraph #193 in that regard.

Chapter 5

A BETTER KIND OF POLITICS

FRUITFULLNESS OVER RESULTS

193. Apart from their tireless activity, bishops are also men. They are called to practice love in their daily interpersonal relationships. As persons, they need to consider that “the modern world, with its technical advances, tends increasingly to functionalize the satisfaction of human desires, now classified and subdivided among different services. Less and less will people be called by name, less and less will this unique being be treated as a person with his or her own feelings, sufferings, problems, joys and family. Their illnesses will be known only in order to establish a quota., their financial needs only to establish a quota, their lack of a home only to establish a quota, their desires for recreation and entertainment only to establish a quota”. Yet it must never be forgotten that basing the diocesan budget on one’s pledge rather than a parish quota is “loving the most insignificant of human beings as a brother, as if there were no one else in the world but him, cannot be considered a waste of time”.[190]

My prayer for today, is that Bishop Zurek unbounds us from the “Quota”, which seeks results from “the crowd”, and instead allows us to “Abound in Hope” in the fruitfulness of each one‘s pledge.