AsiaNews: Turning our gaze away from the poor prevents us from seeing the face of the Lord Jesus. Pope Francis writes it in his Message for World Day of the Poor, the appointment he wanted to conclude the Jubilee of Mercy which will be celebrated this year on Sunday 19 November. While the pontiff is still at the Gemelli Polyclinic recovering from the surgery he underwent on June 7, the Vatican Press Office released this text which bears today’s date, memory of Saint Anthony of Padua, “patron saint of the poor”.
“Every day – writes Pope Francis – we are committed to welcoming the poor, yet it is not enough. A river of poverty crosses our cities and grows bigger and bigger until it overflows; that river seems to overwhelm us, so much the cry of brothers and sisters asking for help, support and solidarity gets louder and louder”. For this reason, in view of the Day of the Poor which is celebrated every year on the Sunday preceding the feast of Jesus Christ the King of the Universe, this year the Pope invites us to be guided by the biblical account of the book of Tobit and in particular by the invitation which Tobit addresses to his son almost as a spiritual testament: «Don’t 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 some poor people with whom he could share the table among the deportees of Nineveh. “How significant it would be – Francis comments – if, on the Day of the Poor, this concern of Tobit’s were also ours: to invite people to share Sunday lunch, after having shared the Eucharistic Table”. But the young man will instead find a poor man killed and left in the middle of the road and then Tobi will get up to go and bury him. And just by making this gesture he will lose his sight.
«The irony of fate: you make a gesture of charity and a misfortune happens to you. We have to think like this – continues Pope Francis -. But faith teaches us to go deeper. Tobi’s blindness will become his strength to recognize even better the many forms of poverty by which he was surrounded. In the moment of trial, he discovers his own poverty, which makes him capable of recognizing the poor. He is faithful to the Law of God and observes the commandments, but this is not enough for him. Effective attention to the poor is possible for him because he has experienced poverty on his own skin”.
Precisely this attitude appears particularly timely today. «We are living in a historic moment that does not favor attention to the poorest – observes the Pontiff -. The volume of the call to well-being is getting higher and higher, while the voices of those who live in poverty are silenced. The poor become images that can move you for a few moments, but when you meet them in the flesh on the street then annoyance and marginalization take over. The parable of the good Samaritan is not a story of the past, it challenges the present of each of us. Delegating to others is easy; offering money for others to do charity is a generous gesture; getting involved in the first person is the vocation of every Christian”.
In this regard, the Pope mentions some situations in particular. “I am thinking of the populations that live in war placesespecially to children deprived of a serene present and a dignified future. No one will ever get used to this situation.” But in the message he also speaks of the «speculations which, in various sectors, lead to a dramatic increase in costs that make many families even more destitute. Wages are depleted rapidly, forcing privations that threaten the dignity of every person. If a family has to choose between food to nourish itself and medicines to heal itself, then the voice of those who call for the right to both goods must be heard, in the name of the dignity of the human person”.
He focuses on the “ethical disorder that marks the world of work»: the «not commensurate salary, the scourge of precariousness, the too many victims of accidents, often due to the mentality that prefers immediate profit to the detriment of safety…». Remember the discomfort of young people «deluded by a culture that leads them to feel “inconclusive” and “failed”. Let us help them react to these harmful instigations, so that everyone can find the way forward to acquire a strong and generous identity”.
Warns from temptation to stop at statistics and numbers on the poor: «They are people – he admonishes – they have faces, stories, hearts and souls. They are brothers and sisters with their strengths and weaknesses, like everyone else, and it is important to enter into a personal relationship with each of them».
On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of the Child JesusFinally, Pope Francis concludes, quoting one of his phrases: “I understood that charity must not remain closed at the bottom of the heart”. “In this house which is the world – Francis comments – everyone has the right to be enlightened by charity, no one can be deprived of it. May the tenacity of St. Therese’s love inspire our hearts, help us ‘not to take our gaze away from the poor’ and to always keep it fixed on the human and divine face of the Lord Jesus Christ».