“How to Manage your Finances and look out for the Common Good” (Settanni)
DONATE- 90/10 Rule – 90 Percent of all you make goes to yourself – 10 Percent to help others. Giving makes us feel that we have plenty for ourselves, so much that we are able to give.
Proverbs 11:24-25 “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”
Make small regular contributions as
part of your budget rather than saying ”I will give when I have more money”
DIRECTION – Its not what you make, its what you have. Many people chase higher incomes with increasing lavish lifestyles. Making more and spending more does not equal financial stability. People often chase higher incomes in hopes of happiness, and find the more money they make, the more unhappy they become.
Budgeting and Living within your means leads to better moral decisions.
- Create a budget and stick with it!!!
- Commit to one action item to improve your weekly budget.
- How can you commit to donating a small portion of your income every month OR donating your time regularly?
We, the climate generation
The Challenge of Sustainable Development
Trapped by a deep logic – driving financial profit, dettached from the real economy…
This market sees no human beings, no life on planet earth… it is a closed system
Effective political governance structures need to change – to work for the common good – to protect common goods such as climate that markets alone cannot protect.
“The cry of the earth is the cry of the poor.”
“A strategy for real change calls for rethinking processes in their entirety, for it is not enough to include a few superficial ecological considerations while failing to question the logic which underlies present-day culture.” Pope Francis
If we want to have a market economy in the future – we need to radically change our concept of the market!
Focolare contribution:
- EOC is 1000 businesses across the world in a network to share profits with the poor
- Network of students, entrepreneurs, academics all working to change economic thinking
- This social love gives rise to the concrete attitudes, behaviors, which in turn affect choices about how goods are produced and distributed within the community – communion.
- Culture of giving – renewal of sobriety, focus on being rather than having
Profit generated is put at the service of the poor
Points:
> EOC: short-term goals matter, but the measure of their actions always contains a view on long-term, future generations.
> The question of ‘what will remain’ (in eternity!) is constantly at the centre of decision making processes.
> It is a ‘calling’ or vocation!
> EOC makes visible the invisible other
Live to give until no one is in need
“TO LOVE IN ACTION.” (1 JOHN 3:18) .
Jesus wants action; he wants charity towards our neighbor in concrete service. He himself showed us this with the washing of the feet for example. To love through action.
We know we can do this … all day long: concrete actions helping one neighbor, then another and another, and so on. … Then, at the end of our life, Jesus will reward us in proportion to these concrete actions. If even one glass of water offered to him in our neighbor will not go unrewarded (cf. Mt 10:42), what will it be like for many glasses of water? – Chiara Lubich
Live to give as a gift = effort -> commitment –> intention –> share
- “make a meaningful contribution to the common good”
- “There is always something we can share”