let’s not take our eyes off the poor

The Pope’s message for the World Day of the Poor was published, which the Church will celebrate this year on Sunday, November 19. The child victims of war, but also the “ethical disorder that characterizes the world of work”, the “speculation that wipes out wages while denying dignity”, and the discomfort of young people “deceived by a society that later makes them feel like failures “, among the new faces of poverty. The invitation to families to share the table with the last.

Vatican City () – Looking away from the poor prevents us from seeing the face of the Lord Jesus. This is what Pope Francis wrote in his message for the World Day of the Poor, the event with which he wanted to mark the end of the Jubilee of Mercy that will be celebrated this year on Sunday, November 19. While the pontiff is still at the Gemelli Hospital recovering from the operation he underwent on June 7, the Vatican Press Office released this text that bears today’s date, the day of Saint Anthony of Padua, “patron of poor”.

“Every day -wrote Pope Francis- we commit ourselves to welcoming the poor, but this is not enough. A river of poverty flows through our cities and grows larger until it overflows; this river seems to overflow us, so much so that the cry of our brothers and sisters who ask for help, support and solidarity grows stronger and stronger”. For this reason, before the Day of the Poor that is celebrated every year on the Sunday before the feast of Christ the King of the Universe, this year the Pope invites us to let ourselves be guided by the biblical account of the book of Tobias and, in particular, by the invitation that Tobi addresses to his son almost as a spiritual testament: “Do not take your eyes off the poor” (Tb 4,7).

“These are the words – recalls the Pontiff – of a man who, sitting at the table, had invited Tobias to find among the deportees from Nineveh some poor person with whom to share the table. “How significant it would be – Francis commented – if, in the Day of the Poor, this concern of Tobias was also ours: to invite them to share Sunday lunch, after having shared the Eucharistic Table”. But instead of that, the young man will find a poor man murdered and abandoned in the middle of the road, so Tobi will get up to go bury him, and precisely by doing this he will lose his sight.

“The irony of fate: you make a gesture of charity and misfortune befalls you. We think like that – continues Pope Francis – but faith teaches us to go further. Tobi’s blindness will become his strength to recognize even better the multiple forms of poverty with which he was surrounded. At the time of the test, he discovers his own poverty, which makes him capable of recognizing the poor. He is faithful to the Law of God and fulfills the commandments, but this is not enough for him. effective attention to the poor is possible because he has experienced poverty in his own flesh”.

It is precisely this attitude that seems especially current. “We live in a historical moment that does not favor attention to the poorest”, observes the Pontiff. “The volume of the call to prosperity is getting louder, while the voices of those who live in poverty are silenced. The poor become images that can move us for a moment, but when we meet them in the flesh and bone in the street, then annoyance and marginalization take over us. The parable of the good Samaritan is not a story of the past, but questions the present of each one of us. Delegating to others is easy; offering money so that others give charity is a generous gesture; getting personally involved is the vocation of every Christian”.

For this, the Pope cited some particular situations. “I am thinking of the populations that live in places of war, especially the children deprived of a serene present and a dignified future. No one will ever be able to get used to this situation.” But in the message he also talks about “speculation that, in various sectors, causes a dramatic increase in prices that makes many families even more destitute. Wages are depleted quickly, forcing people to suffer deprivations that violate dignity of each person. If a family must choose between food to feed itself and medicine to cure itself, the voice of those who claim the right to both goods must be heard, in the name of the dignity of the human person”.

He stopped at the “ethical disorder that characterizes the world of work”: the “disproportionate remuneration, the plague of precariousness, the many victims of accidents, often due to a mentality that prefers immediate benefit over security …”. And he recalled the discomfort of young people “deceived by a culture that leads them to feel ‘incomplete’ and ‘failed’. Let us help them react to these disastrous incitements, so that each one can find the path to follow in order to acquire a strong identity and generous”.

Likewise, he warned against the temptation to dwell on the statistics and numbers on the poor: “they are people, they have faces, stories, hearts and souls. They are brothers and sisters with their merits and defects, like everyone else, and it is important to enter into a personal relationship with each one of them”.

Finally, on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, Pope Francis concluded by quoting one of her phrases: “I understood that charity should not remain closed at the bottom of the heart.” “In this house that is the world,” Francis commented, “everyone has the right to be enlightened by charity, no one can be deprived of it. May the tenacity of Saint Therese’s love inspire our hearts, help us ‘not to stray the gaze of the poor’ and to keep it always fixed on the human and divine face of the Lord Jesus Christ”.