May 21st - Eugene de Mazenod

Love, money, and social status often do not go together. Love brought Eugene's rich mother and poor father together, but the difficulty of money and social status, as Jesus so rightly points out, can make for a life that can enjoy neither the money nor the love, broken by bitterness and fighting. But love can triumph over the pettiness of mammon and status.
Many couples struggle with finances - it is probably the number one symptom of problems in a marriage and family. The problem is how we think about money, how we think about the difficulties caused by economic systems and how we choose to live in them. Setting priorities is the way we make or break in such systems and hard times. For Eugene's parents the monetary and family pressures were too great.
Eugene himself struggled between the two worlds of God and Mammon, eventually giving himself over to God. He went on to found an order which spread around the world.
How we decide to let the world influence us makes a difference in our lives and in the world.
Eugene pray that we will put God first so that everything else will be in focus.

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Servants! Farmhands! Peasants! Poor! Come and learn who you are in the eyes of God. You poor of Jesus Christ, you afflicted, unfortunate suffering, infirm, diseased: all you who are burdened with misery, listen to me! You are the children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, co-heirs of His eternal kingdom, His cherished inheritance. Lift up your minds: you are the children of God. Look through the tatters that cover you. There is an immortal soul within you made to the image of God, a soul redeemed at the price of the very blood of Jesus, more precious in the eyes of God than all the riches and all the kingdoms of this earth. Know your dignity - you even share the Divine Nature - Children of God, Children of the Most High!