![]() Many people want to return to normality and resume economic activities. We are all worried about the social consequences of the pandemic. Bringing the peripheries to the centre means focusing our life on Christ, Who “made Himself poor” for us, to enrich us “by His poverty” ( 2 Cor 8:9), as we have heard. And we are led to this by the love of Christ, Who loved us to the extreme (see Jn 13:1), and reaches the boundaries, the margins, the existential frontiers. And, if there are unhealthy social structures that prevent them from dreaming of the future, we must work together to heal them, to change them (see ibid, 195). Sharing with the poor means mutual enrichment. Indeed it implies walking together, letting ourselves be evangelised by them, who know the suffering Christ well, letting ourselves be “infected” by their experience of salvation, by their wisdom and by their creativity (see ibid). “Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor society” ( EG, 187).įaith, hope and love necessarily push us towards this preference for those most in need, which goes beyond necessary assistance (cf. John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis, 42). Some mistakenly think that this preferential love for the poor is a task for the few, but in reality it is the mission of the Church as a whole, as Saint John Paul II said. This is a key criterion of Christian authenticity (cf. We can read that famous protocol by which we will all be judged, we will all be judged. Therefore, Jesus’ followers recognise themselves by their closeness to the poor, the little ones, the sick and the imprisoned, the excluded and the forgotten, those without food and clothing (cf. And He took risks to be near to the poor. And many times He was judged an impure man because He went to the sick, to lepers… and this made people impure, according to the law of the age. He stood among the sick, the poor, the excluded, showing them God's merciful love (cf. At the beginning of His preaching, He announced that in the Kingdom of God the poor are blessed (cf. He was born into a humble family and worked as a craftsman. He annihilated Himself by making Himself a servant. He made Himself one of us and for this reason, at the centre of the Gospel, there is this option, at the centre of Jesus’ proclamation.Ĭhrist Himself, Who is God, despoiled Himself, making Himself similar to men and he chose not a life of privilege, but he chose the condition of a servant (cf. Since He was rich, He made Himself poor to enrich us. And the first to do this was Jesus we heard this in the reading from the Letter to the Corinthians which was read at the beginning. The preferential option for the poor is at the centre of the Gospel. And this is not a political option nor is it an ideological option, a party option… no. In this dual response for healing there is a choice that, according to the Gospel, cannot be lacking: the preferential option for the poor (see Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 195). On the other, we must also cure a larger virus, that of social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalisation, and the lack of protection for the weakest. On the one hand, it is essential to find a cure for this small but terrible virus, which has brought the whole world to its knees. The response to the pandemic is therefore dual. And the virus, while it does not distinguish between people, has found, in its devastating path, great inequalities and discrimination. The pandemic has exposed the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world. The preferential option for the poor and the virtue of charity
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |