(Please read the passage cited above first.)
My sisters and brothers,
Poor people know how to give generously to their guests despite their poverty. I have visited Mexico several times. Once, we were in a small village and I was admiring a cloth woven by one of the women there. It was on sale for about 500 pesos, but she gave it to me as a present; it was very pretty. In like manner the poor people in the villages we visited always gave us more than enough food to eat.
The generosity of the poor need not fear the condemning words of St James. Poor people know how to help other poor people. We who are rich know how to use our wealth to get more riches.
Woe to the rich, because their wealth has rotted away. Their unused clothes are moth-eaten. Their silver and gold that they have stored in their bank vaults have corroded with rust. The size of our bank accounts is the size of our condemnation.
The rich become richer while the poor become poorer through the actions of the rich. In the time of St James, employers would pay their day laborers at the end of each day so that they could buy food for their family. Not to pay them each day was to rob them and defraud them of their livelihood. In our day, workers work for a week, two weeks or a month before being paid. Still, employers who do not pay their workers decent living wages rob their workers and this injustice rises before God against these rich.
Social justice was very important for St James in his day. The same social justice has to have the same importance for us in our day.
All men and women, all the rich and the poor as well, have the right to live without fear, and with the food and work necessary for them and their families.
Each one of us has to share what we have with those in need. Many times we hoard our time, our love, our power, our talent, our prayers, our works, our lives, our will and our very selves and refuse to share these with those in need. Woe to us when we do not share our wealth with the poor.