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The Poorest of the Poor

by Pope Francis

By March 30, 2020November 23rd, 2023No Comments

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Who are the poorest of the poor? The answer may surprise you.

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In the light of [the loving mercy of God], which is as strong as death (cf. Song 8:6), the real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such. They consider themselves rich, but they are actually the poorest of the poor.

This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars. The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow.

It can even reach the point of being blind to Lazarus begging at their doorstep (cf. Lk 16:20-21). Lazarus, the poor man, is a figure of Christ, who through the [materially] poor pleads for our conversion. As such, he represents the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we may well fail to see.

Such blindness is often accompanied by the proud illusion of our own omnipotence, which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical you will be like God (Gen 3:5), which is the root of all sin.

This illusion can likewise take social and political forms, as shown by the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and, in our own day, by the ideologies of monopolizing thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited.  . . .

For all of us, then, the season of Lent is a favorable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s Word and by practising the works of mercy.

In the corporal works of mercy, we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited. In the spiritual works of mercy—counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer—we touch more directly our own sinfulness.

The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need.

By taking this path, the “proud”, the “powerful” and the “wealthy” spoken of in the Magnificat can also be embraced and undeservedly loved by the crucified Lord who died and rose for them.

This love alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy with the idols of knowledge, power and riches. . . .

Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favorable a time for conversion! We ask this through the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, who, encountering the greatness of God’s mercy freely bestowed upon her, was the first to acknowledge her lowliness (cf. Lk 1:48) and to call herself the Lord’s humble servant (cf. Lk 1:38).

From the pope’s Lenten message, 2016, the Year of Mercy

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