Intercessory Prayer is Either Power or Poverty

When you are in the world of Christianity, you hear it often: please pray for this or that, for this situation or that person, for me or for someone else. You also, when you are a bit into the game, start remembering that praying for others is not something to be done only on request, but that it forms a core part of any Christian's prayer life. The causes are endless, but some strike us as requiring our attention more than others, and we pray for these things most keenly.

I fall into a trap when it comes to this sort of prayer. Something will catch my eye as being a matter of concern to bring to God, and I will instinctively think of praying for the situation. For instance, I might see a homeless person on the street, or see a car crash that looks nasty, or a build up of armed police officers that signal a dangerous situation. Whatever the case may be, one jumps into prayer mode.

This prayer for others is known as intercessory prayer, and Jesus speaks quite frequently of its importance, for your friends, "your enemies and...those who persecute you" (cf. Mt. 5:44). In light of this, I decided to pray also for anyone who annoyed or perturbed me, in part because of this directive but also because praying for someone else has a profoundly humanising effect. One does not pray for objects, one prays for persons.

I have found that, instead of humanising others like I intended, what often happened is that I perceived myself to be exerting a certain power over others, and hence making objects of them once more. Not that prayer is an exertion of power per se, and it is important to clarify our theology of prayer to make this evident within a framework in which prayer is still efficacious, but that was none the less my experience: insofar as I consider prayer to be effective, praying for others was twisted into self-exaltation, as I elevate myself into a position where I bless others. In other words, if I pray for someone who is doing something wrong, I prayed from a status of exalted moral virtue, or if I pray for a poor person, I prayed from an exaltation of spiritual wealth. In short, my prayer was an expression of self-exaltation and and exercise of power over others, a power that I had because I was praying for them.

This attitude is, I think, highly problematic. It colours not only my interactions with the persons I pray for, but even my perceptions of the more distant situations I pray for. Like giving money to some poor person - which can also be an expression of dominance, a clarification that "I am richer and you are poorer" - praying for someone in this way is just a matter of self-righteous pride and contrary to the beatitude "blessed are the poor in spirit." The poor in spirit cannot dish out these blessings upon others like some people babble words of prayer: "I pray for this, and this, and that, and..ah yes, that one, and him, and those people, and definitely her....hmmm...and that too. Amen." because they have no blessing to give.

What then is the right way to experience intercessory prayer? I think that if intercessory prayer is to be genuine and avoid this pitfall of self-exaltation, it must begin with poverty of spirit. The first step is to recognise that we cannot bless others, that our prayers are simply petitions, we ask God for this or that. Being keenly aware of this fact is the right step towards avoiding the spiritual pride that can come with praying for others, since we become conscious that we are doing nothing for the situation or person other than presenting it to God.

Yet there is a more important step than this mere recognition of fact. I contend that intercessory prayer is a prayer made from the poverty of the other being prayed for. In this petitionary prayer, we enter into the other's needs, not insofar as they affect us, but from within their otherness. I think on this point we can learn from the experience of parents: a good mother, for instance, will not see their own needs, wants, desires and sufferings and those of her children to be particularly separate. If I were to break my arm, I have no doubt that my dad would feel the pain just as much as I would, if not more. Similarly, Jesus makes this link between his hungry brothers and himself in that famous line in the Gospel according to St Matthew when he says "as you did to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." For a mother, the needs of her children are her own. For Jesus, the hunger of his brothers and sisters is his own. When we pray for another, their needs should be our own.

Hence, I have learnt, and am slowly learning, to shift intercessory prayer from a mode of power to a mode of poverty. For as I pray for the poor man, I do not pray as someone foreign to him, but I go to his side and pray for him as if for myself. I make his poverty mine and plead to God for him.

This is the essence of the Incarnation, is it not? The Son does not intercede to God first at his right hand, instead he takes on our flesh and so represents us before the Father. Indeed, Jesus takes on our poverty until death, even death on a cross. It is written that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," meaning nothing other than that Jesus, as High Priest, first inherits our poverty before God as human creatures before he intercedes for us. Jesus prays as we should pray: from the position of the one being prayed for, from the poverty of the poor man.

If I can make a practical aside for the celebration of the Mass, which as the highest prayer of the Church certainly includes intercessory prayer, the posture of "I stand, not as myself, but for them for whom I pray" is best displayed in Ad Orientum celebration of Mass. The priest acts in the person of Christ as he intercedes to God the Father in the name of Jesus, bringing to God our petitions as our head (for Christ is the head of his Body, the Church), and so it makes most sense to pray in the same direction as the people. A lawyer interceding for the defendant will not speak to the judge facing the defendant, but will look with the defendant towards the judge as the case is pleaded. Likewise, our representative Jesus Christ, in the person of the priest, looks towards God and offers to him our petitions.

Why Religious Life

The religious life (meaning the vowed life of poverty, chastity and obedience) is forever producing commentary, both from secular quarters and Catholic ones. Three weeks ago, Br. Justin Hannegan, a Benedictine, published an article in Crisis Magazine explaining why the religious life was imploding in numbers, which can effectively be summarised in the title “Sacrificing Religious Life on the Altar of Egalitarianism.” The essence of his argument comes from an analysis of a paper published by the secular sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (here), which shows with an impressive amount of data that the cause was the end of the Second Vatican Council, in particular, the emphasis on the universal call to holiness. Hannegan argues that an perverted spirit of egalitarianism that emerged after the council has effectively made religious life into masochism, obscuring the highway to holiness that it represents. He writes:

“Religious life, in itself, is not a desirable good. Religious life is a renunciation. It is a kind of death. It involves turning one’s back on what is humanly good and desirable. Consider the life of a Trappist. A Trappist monk deprives himself of sleep, deprives himself of food, gives up a wife and children, puts aside the joys of conversation, gives up his personal property, rises at 4:00 in the morning every day to chant interminable psalms in a cold church, loses the opportunity to travel, and even relinquishes his own will. The thought of being a Trappist is not an appealing thought. It instills a kind of dread—the sort of dread that we feel when we contemplate a skull, or when we stand over a precipice, or when we look across a barren landscape. All forms of religious life have this repulsive effect. All forms of religious life, at their very core, consist of three vows—poverty, chastity, and obedience—and each of these vows is repulsive. The vow of poverty means giving up money and property; the vow of chastity means giving up a spouse and children; and the vow of obedience means giving up one’s own will. No one has an innate desire to sever himself from property, family, and his own will. No one has an innate desire to uproot three of life’s greatest goods. Such a desire would be mere perversion.”

Hannegan goes on, however, to point out why religious life exists at all by quoting various saints:

“Instead of asking people whether they desire religious life, we should ask them whether they desire salvation—whether they desire to become saints. If sanctity is the goal, then religious life and all its harrowing renunciations begin to make sense. Although religious life is the hardest, most fearsome way to live, it is also the most spiritually secure, most fruitful, and most meritorious. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux tells us that because they renounce property, family, and their own wills, religious “live more purely, they fall more rarely, they rise more speedily, they are aided more powerfully, they live more peacefully, they die more securely, and they are rewarded more abundantly.” According to Saint Athanasius, “if a man embraces the holy and unearthly way, even though as compared with [married life] it be rugged and hard to accomplish, nonetheless it has the more wonderful gifts: for it grows the perfect fruit, namely a hundredfold.” Saint Theresa of Ávila even tells us that she became a nun, against her own desires, because she “saw that the religious state was the best and safest.”

Now, as Sister Theresa Noble, in responding to the article over at Ignitium Today, points out, the Benedictine seems to be suggesting an excellent way to Pelagianism, the heresy memorably combated by St Augustine of Hippo, the idea that people can earn their way to salvation. Still, if he subbed in sanctity for his mention of salvation, he does have a point: very few people spontaneously wake up with a desire to be obedient to someone else, renounce marriage and sexuality, and not own anything. Preaching desire for the vows as a way to vocation will almost inevitably lead to married life.¹

If I was being overly cynical, or more likely, I was completely ignorant of the way the Church understands the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, I would be inclined to think that they were either a way for a power-hungry Church to dominate people, or an exercise is pointless asceticism. Both are ignorant, and for those who know where they come from, absurd. The vows, at least as I see them, have at least three closely related purposes: they are evangelical, they are eschatological and they are practical.

Before I explain why I think the vows are central to the Church's mission, I should probably note that my perspective is different to those from other religious orders' traditions: I am not seeking to be a Trappist, or a Benedictine, or a Franciscan, etc. Each of these great orders will have a view on why the vows are taken. Instead, I will present a view that is at least moderately within the Ignatian or (broadly) Jesuit tradition. Since I am not (yet) a Jesuit, perhaps this is a bit presumptuous of me, but I will do so nonetheless.

The evangelical counsels are named so because they are, in fact, evangelical. That is to say, they foster the conditions which are most suitable for evangelism, for mission, for the proclamation of the Gospel. Obedience makes a person versatile to their superiors (in particular, note the Jesuit fourth vow of obedience to the Pope in matters of mission), poverty means they will be less attached to a particular place (as someone with a mortgaged house, for instance) and chastity also increases versatility. Historically speaking, the Order of Preachers (commonly known as the Dominicans) adopted the evangelical counsels as part of their own ministry, particularly in the context of the Albigensian heresy, where the monastic orders were limited in their ability to counter the heresy because of their monasticism.

The vows are also profoundly eschatological for two related reasons: they mirror the ministry of Jesus and they point to something other than this world. In mirroring the life of Jesus, those who take the vows show in exemplary fashion an aspect of Christ – they are like the poor preacher who had no-where to rest his head, they are like the chaste man who laid down his life for the Church, a theological marriage only to be consummated in the parousia, and they are like the obedient Son of God, obedient even unto death on a cross. This leads to the question, why? If one seeks to find the answer in purely worldly terms, the task will be in vain – because the vows, just as the life of Christ, point to something beyond the grave. Poverty leads to riches, as Paul says “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Though he gives himself bodily to nobody, in doing so, he is able to give himself bodily to everyone. The the obedience of Christ on the cross points to, and indeed, is a precondition of, the resurrection. Hence, the vows are not only centred on the Gospel, but point to its truth, and point to the life of the world to come.

Finally, they are intensely practical: both in the common sense pragmatic way and in the “practical way to holiness” type way that Br. Hannegan, the saints, and John Paul II (cf. Vita Consecrata) pointed to. They are pragmatic because they allow greater freedom – one is more free when less attached to material possessions, more versatile when not committed to the married life and children, and in a strange way which most religious can attest to,² more free with the vow of obedience. An explanation of why that is the case would take a while, so I recommend Fr. James Martin, SJ's discussion of the issue in “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.”

When things are practical, however, it is not for the sake of being practical – pragmatism is, by its very nature, instrumental, a tool in the hand of the user. Practical for what? One answer might be, “for whatever you want to do”, and to a great extent, this is true. For this reason, these vows, particularly the vow of chastity (understood as vowing not to marry, ie as celibacy) can be abused for selfishness, at least when not professed for some other purpose (as religious vows are made). For the Society of Jesus, the vows are made for the purposes of mission and service to others, in recent times, particularly the poor. For other orders, the purpose might be slightly different, though the vows are still helpful in those pursuits.

Finally, they are indeed paths to holiness. One should not quote the saints as proof-texts on this point, but the witness of the holy people of times past is broad and has a degree of unanimity: religious life is excellence in the path to sanctity. Some of the reasons are like the ones above – the religious life is the life of Christ, not just in the vows, but in the community, contemplative and prayerful aspects of it. Probably the clearest, second to the example of Jesus, is the eschatological reason: in living a life that points to the Kingdom of God, it serves not as a pointer to others, but as preparation in itself. If C.S. Lewis was right in saying that the Christian path is such that we may become little Christs, then living like Christ, imitating Christ, is sure to be the fastest path to being transformed into Christs.

Still, the Second Vatican Council is not incorrect when it teaches that, in the words of its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium): “All Christians in any state of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love.” This universal calls are universal, by virtue of baptism, and even further than that. But whilst it says that it is the essence of the Christian vocation to grow in the fullness of Christian life and the perfection of love, it does not say that any particular way of following Jesus is the same. I think religious life probably is an easier path to holiness, which implies that the married saints really are heroic. This view might sound clericalist (though most, or at least many, religious are not ordained, and hence not clerics), but it is actually surprisingly obvious: a life of prayer, immersion in saintly spiritualities, liturgy and various expressions of Gospel centred life is seems evidently going to lead to greater holiness, and not even in a Pelagian standing way, but because religious life is clearly and simply a response to Jesus' call to leave everything and follow him. The issue is, how does one incorporate the same embodiment of the ministry of Jesus into married life? That difficulty is why religious life is an easier way to holiness.

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1. I must emphasize the “almost” - because I was drawn first to the vows, then to the Society of Jesus where they were expressed in a way I found expressed what I thought they meant the best. I have never met anyone like me, however.

2. Whilst it is certainly freedom in a very real sense, if one takes freedom to be the mere absence of structures in life that guide one's path, of course one will not find it more free. The tales of people who have left religious life and written as if it were awful that whoever the superior is in the order would tell them to actually do something, did not understand the meaning of the term “obedience.” If they did not want to be obedient, they should not have vowed to do so.

The Eucharist and Poverty

Spend enough time with Catholics from a broad enough background, and the issue of taking Holy Communion will pop up. Sometimes these discussions are very fierce. Broadly speaking, and I note that there is much more complexity and depth to what I write here, those who favour receiving our Lord on the tongue claim to do so in the name of reverence, and those who argue for receiving him in the hands do so in the name of freedom. There are lots of interesting commentaries on this issue, so I need not go into them.[1]

Historically speaking, faithful Christians have received on the tongue and in the hands. When receiving on the hands it was, traditionally, in a manner distinct to how it is received nowadays, but customs change, so this is not a necessary sign of invalidity. When receiving on the tongue, it was pretty much the same as these days, but again, not a necessary indicator that such a style must be normative.

The Eucharist makes the Church. The unity and essence of the Church is in Christ, and her participation in Christ is made possible first by Baptism, and then is nourished and renewed by the Eucharist – hence St Paul writes to the Corinthians: “The bread which we break, is it not participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread.” Christ, who is the bread of life, becomes the basis for the Body of Christ, the Church.

Continually nourished by the bread of life, the Church exists for her mission, on which Pope Paul VI states: “the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.” Evangelism is the proclamation of the good news. Were the Church to leave the good news (or gospel), she would leave her essence, and were the Church to keep silent the good news, then St Paul declares woe.

Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah to similar effect when he explains his own ministry: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” This good news is universal in scope, it affects everyone in the world – but in Jesus’ typical style, he is first and foremost concerned with those in need. So are we. Right after declaring that the Eucharist makes the Church (CCC 1396), the very next paragraph of the Catechism opens “The Eucharist commits us to the poor.”

What does poverty have to do with how we receive the Eucharist? A lot, actually. The poor are not a group alien to us, indeed, we are the poor: perhaps not in terms of bank accounts, but in terms of how we relate to God, we are poor. There is no way around it – God has given us everything we have, even our very existence is a free gift. When we receive the Eucharist, when we receive Jesus Christ – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – we receive the greatest treasure the Church has, or according to St Thomas Aquinas, the only treasure the Church has.

Cardinal Bergoglio handing out the Eucharist reminiscent
of how one hands out food to people in need.

Therefore, when we receive the Eucharist we must receive it in such a way that recognizes our poverty. This does not actually shed much light on how to receive Holy Communion, or perhaps it seems to indicate that in the hands is the right way to receive, for when does one actually feed a poor person by putting the food in their mouth? No, usually food is passed to them whilst they are standing, and in their hands.

We should receive the Eucharist in such a way expresses our spirit of poverty and both ways are appropriate within the poverty motif, as well as permissible by Church practice.[2] Jesus says something very important, however, when he talks about people coming to him: “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Children are one of the neediest groups of all: they are not fully formed, they are not well educated, they lack means and the maturity. Even more than a spirit of poverty, of which Jesus already said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God,” we are told that also to the children does the kingdom belong to.

Is not the Eucharist more
nourishing than vitamin A?

It seems quite clear to me, when combining both lines of reasoning, how to partake of the Eucharist: I must receive this most Holy Sacrament as a child, as a poor child, as a child who cannot help themselves: on the floor and straight into the mouth. To do otherwise would be to make the appearance of having grown up and becoming self-sufficient – I can scarcely imagine a time in which a creature could say to God “cheers, mate, and thanks for all the fish.”

I suspect this issue is like vocation: one has a thousand reasons for why one pursues one course and not another, and hence can often lack any comprehension of why another would do differently. How to partake of Holy Communion is something the Church currently leaves up to individual preference – both ways are lawful, as they say, but perhaps not both ways are beneficial.

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[1] For those interested, however, Danielle Bean commented in 2010 about the awkwardness involved in receiving on the tongue with Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion (see http://www.ncregister.com/blog/danielle-bean/why-im-giving-up-communion-on-the-tongue), Paul Kokoski wrote an essay for the Homiletic & Pastoral Review, in which he discusses the claims of the Archbishop of Karaganda (Kazakhstan), Athanasius Schneider, (see http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8616) and I found the foray into history of I. Shawn McElhinney fascinating (which can be found here: http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/communion.html) 

[2] Something being permitted is different to something being encouraged, I should note.

Though I Walk Through (Fortitude) Valley, I Will Fear No Beggar

Written for Social Justice Sunday, 29^th of September, 2013 AD.[1]

I get off at the Valley railway station.

[i]It is a Thursday in the evening, as I walk through Brunswick Street to do some errands. People hailing from all parts of the world, particularly the neighbouring East Asian countries, bustle in the walkway going about their daily lives. The night brings people dressed in more expensive clothes, ready to partake in the Valley's night life. Some are wearing more formal dresses and suits, others seem to be going for sexual appeal - all seem to be getting ready for the entertainment the Valley brings.

Except not quite all. Looking a little more carefully at the people not rushing to get somewhere or huddling in large groups, some people are wearing rather inexpensive clothes indeed, perhaps sufficient for warmth in the upcoming months of Australian spring and summer, but barely enough to survive the ending winter. They seem to live on the streets, making surviving off the waste and generosity of others. Or perhaps they do have some accommodation – still, they barely scrape by the day.

One such person walks up to me now, a lady probably in her early-thirties, but looking closer to fifty years old. Her body looks fatigued, but her eyes dart rapidly around, as if she were paranoid about being attacked by someone behind me. We lock eyes and she, after looking at my chest for a split-second, approaches me with a little more energy.

“Spare a few bucks, mate?”

I stopped.

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Someone like me gets asked that sort of question around Brisbane daily and probably every other second somewhere in the world. I suspect that anyone reading this has been asked on the street for money – not just by someone busking, but by someone in financial woes.

When I talk to people about the issue of giving money to beggars, or giving alms in language that is more common in the Bible, what the saying that usually pops up is “give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.” That sort of logic seems to me to be correct: giving in a way that produces sustainability is better than giving in such a way that produces dependence.

When Caritas International says something to the same effect, I nod my head. Browsing the financial statement for Caritas Australia, I can see that every cent in produces a cent out in targeted and wise relief and humanitarian aid.[2] However, when I talk to the average person about giving to persons such as the lady that approached me on that Thursday evening, I am more than often talking to someone who justifies not giving fish by fooling themselves that they will teach them how to fish.

The brilliance of using that line is obvious upon a little reflection: one is able to justify to oneself one’s lack of kindness by pretending that one is being truly kind. After all, those darting eyes probably came from spending the last merciful soul’s money on drugs, right? One can rationalize the competing desires to give alms because it seems right, and keeping the money because we like money, by making out that keeping one’s money is actually right! With all one’s generosity, one can now abundantly not give.

The utilitarians can stop reading now. Considering only the outcomes of the action, and given that utilitarians are practically obliged to give away the money anyway, their not-giving is more like the targeted giving of Caritas.[3] Though I used to be a utilitarian, I must say I fell too often into the trap of self-deceit and selfishness. I should have known better than to conjure up a rule that justified my doing what I really wanted to do anyway.

The Christian perspective on giving is dramatically different. Of all the numerous parables, discourses and sayings of Jesus about judgement, caring for those in material need is one of the most prominent: be it caring for Christian brethren in need (such as in Matthew 25), or the poor person in the street (such as the parable of Lazarus and the rich man). In fact, Jesus gives us the very clear command to give to whoever begs from us, right after  talking about turning the other cheek, giving one’s cloak after having one’s coat taken and walking two miles when forced to walk one:

"Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you." (Matthew 5:42 – see comments here)

Anyone who refuses a beggar is, in a very real sense, sinning. But the reason we managed to convince ourselves that we were doing the right thing originally is that there was some truth in the fear that the money would just go towards making the lady’s eyes turn red, and it’s distinctly possible that this will be the case now.

Let me say a few words about people in material need who abuse drugs and alcohol: there may be very few people in the world who have more of an aversion to these two substances than me. For various cultural and personal reasons, substance abuse in all its forms is abnormally repugnant to me. It probably is to them, too. These people often abuse substances because forgetting their woes for a few hours, even a whole day, is often far more exciting a prospect than having some food. Particularly those involved in the sex industry, substance abuse can be the only way to get through the day. More generally to the question “what do you do with your pain?” that I heard asked to a group recently, the response was fairly quick: “get drunk.” Another said “Sex, drugs and rock and roll”. This is not a poor investment for many of them: it is an attempt to remedy something deeper, a reflection of the fact that “man does not live by bread alone.”

Suppose there’s a good chance any money given will be squandered on drugs – then is it OK to ignore the beggar? No. We followers of the Risen Lord have the example of Jesus to model our love on. Consider the recklessness with which Jesus graces us: imagine the angels giving counsel to God, saying “you shall give them the grace to do great things, and they shall squander it with sin!” I cannot speak for anyone else, but when God has given me much, too often I have used it all for my own gain. When, by the sheer love that Christ in his forgiveness has lavished upon me, I am pardoned of all my transgressions, when I am invited to dine with Jesus at the Supper of the Lamb, I frequently decline in favour of wrongdoing. So no, the chance, even a high chance, of misuse is not grounds for Christians to refuse alms.

I would go further and say that even the bank note in my wallet[4] is not mine by right, but instead mine by grace. St John Chrysostom famously said "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." The grace given to me in the form of wealth is in fact a chance to give it away to someone who needs it more. This grace of Jesus is the essence of the Gospel, and grace dies if it is not shared, that is, the Gospel withers in a person if it is not nourished by its proclamation by word and deed.

Money might produce temptation in a drug addict, so if we are fairly certain the person will misuse the funds, then are we justified in not giving? Almost, yet absolutely not. As I said, people in material need rarely take drugs because they are overflowing with cash. It is the rich-though-spiritually-needy who try to fill the holes in the soul with the extravagance of drugs, not the materially needy. So although giving money might produce the temptation which leads to sin – obviously a negative outcome – it is still the lack which ultimately produces the sin. We as Christians are not justified in not giving, now is the moment when we must give the most: now we must give instead our time, energy, mental strength, compassion, and not just our money. For instance, I have at times had the opportunity to go out for lunch and talk – or perhaps just listen – to people who usually get ignored because of the guilt they produce in us.

I, at least, must remember that the added energy that came to the lady after glancing down at my chest came from the hope she saw in the Cross of Christ which I wear around my neck. From there all my hopes come, from there her hope came. I should never disappoint, for I have never been disappointed by God.

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[1] My gratitude to Marc who wrote an inspiring piece that I have borrowed in large part and recast as my own here. See his version: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/09/giving-your-money-to-drug-addicts.html

[2] The Caritas Australia financial statement for the financial year ending 2012 can be found starting page 70 here: http://www.caritas.org.au/docs/publications-and-reports/annual-report-2011-2012.pdf

[3] For an understanding of why this is the case, see the "Demandingness Objection" - I would have said I was Singerian, though very poorly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandingness_objection.

[4] I am, as a university student, not exactly rich anyway, though I have far more than many and my parents provide for all my basic needs. Every so often, though, I do have some spare money in my wallet.

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[i] Source for Image: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/your-brisbane/welcome-to-the-valley-australias-scariest-saturday-night-20091104-hy3p.html