Course IV - Teaching 10: Providential Economy

The Sons of Cafh practice the Providential Economy.
The Son feels that his material goods and earnings granted by these goods do not entirely belong to him but have to be proportionally divided.
It is necessary to ban the concept of possession if one wants to remove from the world its afflictive miseries and calamities. But there is a fundamental difference between Gospel poverty and Providential Cafh’s Economy.
Christ is sufficiently categorical in this sense, “Give us this day our daily bread”. “Do not hoard treasures upon earth.” And he says to his apostles: “No scrip, no bread, nor money in your purse”.
Early Christians, guided by Peter, had all things in common. In “The Acts” we read, “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”
But the ideal of the Gospel poverty wished by Christ as foundation of happiness to all remains among beautiful aspirations. Only in rare cases someone of the most fervent beings could achieve it. Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the worthiest exemplars.
The ideal of Franciscan poverty is sublime. Thanks to the Gospel injunction really practiced, a man achieves, by systematic renunciation to all, the union with the true poverty; it is nature redeemed by the blood of Christ and divinized by his imitation of supreme renunciation.
But not all can follow this path. Francis was able to keep this state of life only with some few disciples. Although he claimed for his friars not to leave their vocation of poverty, he had helplessly to see that they needed clothes to wear, a house to dwell and Teachings to study.
Ideally Franciscans were faithful to poverty but never could effectively practice it as Francis and his first companions did. All those who later fought for their pristine condition were systematically repressed by the need and good of the community. Only some few chosen people can realize God by means of total poverty.
The Gospel ideal of poverty, over all as that practiced now in the Christian world, is rather a way to mystical realization before a collective evil than a remedy to the uncontrolled desire of human possessions. The Providential Economy of Cafh wants to change over all the possessive viewpoint of the Son. This Providential Economy is not only a part of the path of realization, but a solution to the possessive and selfish evil of mankind; the happiness of the Son is incomplete without the happiness of all.
The possessiveness of man makes him poor and miserable. To hoard earthly goods is to deprive others of what naturally belongs to them. The mother earth provides necessary food for all his children, and nothing else. A continuous and disproportionate storage for speculation and not for a just distribution is depriving someone else of what is necessary and charging the possessor with the discomfort of many people.
So possessor and possession are two different, antagonistic things that are bound to collide and destroy one other. As a ship is quite loaded, it founders.
Providential Economy teaches that in man there is a permanent source of possibilities of every kind of goods and, among these, of material goods.
This soul source is continuously plugged by the extra load of ideas about non-real needs. To get rid from a selfish concern about oneself is to leave the water of possibilities to spring up in abundance.
To give most of our possessions is the only way to destroy the complicated economic system of retaining and aiming at percentages. Retention, as such, reproduces for its own benefit.
Providential Economy is not to give all, to become a professional beggar, to despise any inherent comfort and good to human living, but to know how to occupy one’s place in the world and not two places.
One cannot give a man spiritual teaching if we do not think about his economic situation.
Man needs two breads for his progress: spiritual bread and material bread.
Cafh’s Providential Economy is intrinsically the human concept of non-possession and, certainly, the concept of just participation in world goods.
The Providential Economy has to be socially practiced.
Man lives, works, thinks and has the right to all that he especially needs to live. As any being needs certain quantity of air to live, so he needs a human magnetic field to develop, always according to his special need.
All men are similar, but none the same as other.
According to his performance and capacity, man needs his own house, tools to work, domestic animals, Teachings to study and food to live. A technician needs his laboratory, an organizer his factory; a priest his church, a tailor his sewing machine and a sailor his ship. So it is necessary the compulsory contribution of men to a common social fund, the great “Inca Store”.
Possession of vital elements truly indispensable to man is not the object in itself but the soul possession of them. It is to possess experience as a whole, technical and applicable capacity of experienced means, inner and communicative bliss of one’s value, and over all, inner conviction that one has the right to participate in goods of life.
Providential Economy has to be practiced with the family.
Duties with those who depend on one have to be spontaneous as flowing water. To give, to give the best must be the motto for parents, sons, brothers and relatives.
Most men give as little as possible to their relatives so that later they may inherit more. Inheritance is the worst evil of mankind; of course, disproportionate and inappropriate inheritances. Everything that relatives receive because they need to develop their lives shall be constructive and happy, but a disproportionate inheritance should be considered an evil for the Sons.
Providential Economy has to be practiced as a discipline by means of saving.
Saving is not a selfish factor when is practiced as prevision; so it is basis of civilian happiness.
There are movable needs as to time and place, and should be taken into account; but saving exclusively as a mean and speculative idea is bad.
Providential Economy has to be practiced by the Son as a possibility of offering.
What man produces is ever greater than his real needs, and this remainder, the fruit of discretion and economy, is a duty that the Son has to offer providentially to other beings. Of course any offering made to other men entails an imperfection in itself; in a kind world, man never should need anything from anyone, but this is an effort made to attain this state of economic perfection.
The Son does not give alms voluntarily if in a sacred and solemn way he does not force himself to give proportionately a part of what he has and produces to those who are deprived of all their needs. He deems that he does not give away but that is a duty of man and people, which is a divine injunction assumed by him with total responsibility.
A part of his possessions shall go systematically and orderly to children, sick, disabled and weak people, and the old and the rest of needy persons.
Providential Economy has to be practiced by the Son as a part of his spiritual development.
The Son takes part in the Divine Plan through the concept of non-possession, through his conviction that he has his own wealth and through the systematic offering made to carry out this theory.
The spiritual aspect of man shall not be solved if his economic difficulties are not solved.
The economic problem can be solved only if you transfer it to the Divine Plan, that is, it is not two problems, material bread and spiritual bread, but only one problem. It is as much important to eat as to know.
By this understanding and contribution, the Son transfers the material aspect to his divine inner world and solves it by his participative non-possession and by acquisition of a possessive power that is internal, not external.