Elise Harris
In his message for this year’s World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis challenged Catholics on their attitude toward the impoverished, asking whether they really listen to and love the needy, or engage in charity only to please themselves.
“The condition of poverty cannot be expressed in a word but becomes a cry which crosses the heavens and reaches God. What does the cry of the poor express if not their suffering and solitude, their delusion and hope?” the pope said in his message.
“How it is that this cry, which rises to the presence of God, is unable to penetrate our ears and leaves us indifferent and impassive?” he asked, saying the World Day of the Poor is a call “to make a serious examination of conscience in order to understand if we are really capable of hearing them”.
The Pontiff stressed the importance of being silent in order to really listen to those in need, saying that speaking too much of oneself will make a person deaf to the voice and the cry of the poor.
The Pope expressed concern that at times initiatives aimed at helping the poor, which in themselves are “meritorious and necessary,” are carried out with an intention “more to please those who undertake them than to really acknowledge the cry of the poor”.
“If this is the case, when the cry of the poor rings out our reaction is incoherent and we are unable to empathise with their condition. We are so entrapped in a culture which obliges us to look in the mirror and to pamper ourselves that we believe that a gesture of altruism is sufficient without compromising ourselves directly.”
Pope Francis’ message, titled “This poor man cried and the Lord heard him”, is based on Psalm 34 and was published June 14 in anticipation of the second World Day of the Poor, which he instituted at the close of the Jubilee of Mercy.
The event now takes place throughout the world on the 34th Sunday of ordinary time, which this year falls on November 18.
Catholic News Service (CNA)
