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MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
FOR THE FIFTH WORLD DAY OF THE POOR
14 November 2021, Thirty-third Sunday in
Ordinary Time
“The poor you will always have with you” (Mk
14:7)
1. “The
poor you will always have with you” (Mk 14:7).
Jesus spoke these words at a meal in Bethany, in
the home of a certain Simon, known as the leper,
a few days before Passover. As the Evangelist
recounts, a woman came in with an alabaster
flask full of precious ointment and poured it
over Jesus’ head. This caused great amazement
and gave rise to two different interpretations.
The first was indignation on the part of some of
those present, including the disciples, who,
considering the value of the ointment – about
300 denarii, equivalent to the annual salary of
a labourer – thought it should have been sold
and the proceeds given to the poor. In Saint
John’s Gospel, Judas takes this position: “Why
was this ointment not sold for three hundred
denarii and given to the poor?” Saint John goes
on to note that Judas “said this not because he
cared about the poor, but because he was a
thief, and as he had the money box, he used to
take what was put in it” (12:5-6). It was no
accident that this harsh criticism came from the
mouth of the traitor: it shows those who do not
respect the poor betray Jesus’ teaching and
cannot be his disciples. Origen has strong words
in this regard: “Judas appeared to be concerned
about the poor...
If in our own day some hold the purse of
the Church and, like Judas, speak out for the
poor, but then take out what they put in, let
them share in the lot of Judas” (Commentary on
the Gospel of Matthew, 11, 9).
The second interpretation was that of Jesus, and
it makes us appreciate the profound meaning of
the woman’s act. He says, “Let her alone. Why do
you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing
to me” (Mk 14:6). Jesus knows that his death is
approaching, and he sees in her act an
anticipation of the anointing of his lifeless
body prior to its placement in the tomb. This
was beyond anything the others present could
imagine. Jesus was reminding them that he is the
first of the poor, the poorest of the poor,
because he represents all of them. It was also
for the sake of the poor, the lonely, the
marginalized and the victims of discrimination,
that the Son of God accepted the woman’s
gesture.
With a woman’s sensitivity, she alone
understood what the Lord was thinking.
That nameless woman, meant perhaps to
represent all those women who down the centuries
would be silenced and suffer violence, thus
became the first of those women who were
significantly present at the supreme moments of
Christ’s life: his crucifixion, death, burial
and resurrection. Women, so often discriminated
against and excluded from positions of
responsibility, are seen in the Gospels to play
a leading role in the history of revelation.
Jesus’ then goes on to associate that woman with
the great mission of evangelization: “Amen, I
say to you, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed to
the whole world, what she has done will be told
in memory of her” (Mk 14:9).
2. This powerful “empathy” established between
Jesus and the woman, and his own interpretation
of her anointing as opposed to the scandalized
view of Judas and others, can lead to a fruitful
reflection on the inseparable link between
Jesus, the poor and the proclamation of the
Gospel.
The face of God revealed by Jesus is that of a
Father concerned for and close to the poor. In
everything, Jesus teaches that poverty is not
the result of fate, but a concrete sign pointing
to his presence among us. We do not find him
when and where we want, but see him in the lives
of the poor, in their sufferings and needs, in
the often inhuman conditions in which they are
forced to live. As I never tire of repeating,
the poor are true evangelizers, for they were
the first to be evangelized and called to share
in the Lord's joy and his kingdom (cf. Mt 5:3).
The poor, always and everywhere, evangelize us,
because they enable us to discover in new ways
the true face of the Father. “They have much to
teach us. Besides participating in the sensus
fidei, they know the suffering Christ through
their own sufferings. It is necessary that we
all let ourselves be evangelized by them. The
new evangelization is an invitation to recognize
the salvific power of their lives and to place
them at the centre of the Church’s journey. We
are called to discover Christ in them, to lend
them our voice in their causes, but also to be
their friends, to listen to them, to understand
them and to welcome the mysterious wisdom that
God wants to communicate to us through them. Our
commitment does not consist exclusively of
activities or programmes of promotion and
assistance; what the Holy Spirit mobilizes is
not an unruly activism, but above all an
attentiveness that considers the other in a
certain sense as one with ourselves. This loving
attentiveness is the beginning of a true concern
for their person which inspires me effectively
to seek their good” (Evangelii Gaudium,
198-199).
3. Jesus not only sides with the poor; he also
shares their lot. This is a powerful lesson for
his disciples in every age. This is the meaning
of his observation that “the poor you will
always have with you”. The poor will always be
with us, yet that should not make us
indifferent, but summon us instead to a mutual
sharing of life that does not allow proxies. The
poor are not people “outside” our communities,
but brothers and sisters whose sufferings we
should share, in an effort to alleviate their
difficulties and marginalization, restore their
lost dignity and ensure their necessary social
inclusion. On the other hand, as we know, acts
of charity presuppose a giver and a receiver,
whereas mutual sharing generates fraternity.
Almsgiving is occasional; mutual sharing, on the
other hand, is enduring. The former risks
gratifying those who perform it and can prove
demeaning for those who receive it; the latter
strengthens solidarity and lays the necessary
foundations for achieving justice. In short,
believers, when they want to see Jesus in person
and touch him with their hands, know where to
turn. The poor are a sacrament of Christ; they
represent his person and point to him.
Many are the examples of saints who made mutual
sharing with the poor their life project. I
think, among others, of Father Damien de
Veuster, the saintly apostle to the lepers. With
great generosity, he answered the call to go to
the island of Molokai, which had become a ghetto
accessible only to lepers, to live and die with
them. He rolled up his sleeves and did
everything he could to improve the lives of
those who were poor, ill and outcast. He became
both doctor and nurse, heedless of the risks
involved, and brought the light of love to that
“colony of death”, as the island was then
called. He himself contracted leprosy, which
became the sign of his total sharing in the lot
of the brothers and sisters for whom he had
given his life. His testimony is most timely in
our own days, marked by the coronavirus
pandemic. The grace of God is surely at work in
the hearts of all those who, without fanfare,
spend themselves for the poorest, sharing with
them in concrete ways.
4. We need, then, wholeheartedly to follow the
Lord's invitation to “repent and believe in the
Gospel” (Mk 1:15). This conversion consists
primarily in opening our hearts to recognizing
the many different forms of poverty and
manifesting the Kingdom of God through a
lifestyle consistent with the faith we profess.
Often the poor are viewed as persons apart, as a
“category” in need of specific charitable
services. Yet following Jesus entails changing
this way of thinking and embracing the challenge
of mutual sharing and involvement. Christian
discipleship entails deciding not to accumulate
earthly treasures, which give the illusion of a
security that is actually fragile and fleeting.
It requires a willingness to be set free from
all that holds us back from achieving true
happiness and bliss, in order to recognize what
is lasting, what cannot be destroyed by anyone
or anything (cf. Mt 6:19-20).
Here too, Jesus’ teaching goes against the
grain, for it promises what can only be seen and
experienced with complete certainty by the eyes
of faith. “Everyone who has left houses or
brothers or sisters or father or mother or
children or lands for my name’s sake will
receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life”
(Mt 19:29). Unless we choose to become poor in
passing riches, worldly power and vanity, we
will never be able to give our lives in love; we
will live a fragmented existence, full of good
intentions but ineffective for transforming the
world. We need, therefore, to open ourselves
decisively to the grace of Christ, which can
make us witnesses of his boundless charity and
restore credibility to our presence in the
world.
5. Christ’s Gospel summons us to display special
concern for the poor and to recognize the varied
and excessive forms of moral and social disorder
that are generating ever new forms of poverty.
There seems to be a growing notion that the poor
are not only responsible for their condition,
but that they represent an intolerable burden
for an economic system focused on the interests
of a few privileged groups. A market that
ignores ethical principles, or picks and chooses
from among them, creates inhumane conditions for
people already in precarious situations. We are
now seeing the creation of new traps of poverty
and exclusion, set by unscrupulous economic and
financial actors lacking in a humanitarian sense
and in social responsibility.
Last year we experienced yet another scourge
that multiplied the numbers of the poor: the
pandemic, which continues to affect millions of
people and, even when it does not bring
suffering and death, is nonetheless a portent of
poverty. The poor have increased
disproportionately and, tragically, they will
continue to do so in the coming months. Some
countries are suffering extremely severe
consequences from the pandemic, so that the most
vulnerable of their people lack basic
necessities. The long lines in front of soup
kitchens are a tangible sign of this
deterioration. There is a clear need to find the
most suitable means of combating the virus at
the global level without promoting partisan
interests.
It is especially urgent to offer concrete
responses to those who are unemployed, whose
numbers include many fathers, mothers, and young
people.
Social solidarity and the generosity
which many, thanks be to God, have shown are,
together with far-sighted projects of human
promotion, making a most important contribution
at this juncture.
6. Nonetheless, one question, which is by no
means obvious, remains. How can we give a
tangible response to the millions of the poor
who frequently encounter only indifference, if
not resentment? What path of justice must be
followed so that social inequalities can be
overcome and human dignity, so often trampled
upon, can be restored? Individualistic
lifestyles are complicit in generating poverty,
and often saddle the poor with responsibility
for their condition. Yet poverty is not the
result of fate; it is the result of selfishness.
It is critical, therefore, to generate
development processes in which the abilities of
all are valued, so that complementarity of
skills and diversity of roles can lead to a
common resource of mutual participation. There
are many forms of poverty among the “rich” that
might be relieved by the wealth of the “poor”,
if only they could meet and get to know each
other! None are so poor that they cannot give
something of themselves in mutual exchange. The
poor cannot be only those who receive; they must
be put in a position to give, because they know
well how to respond with generosity. How many
examples of sharing are before our eyes! The
poor often teach us about solidarity and
sharing. True, they may be people who lack some
things, often many things, including the bare
necessities, yet they do not lack everything,
for they retain the dignity of God's children
that nothing and no one can take away from them.
7. For this reason, a different approach to
poverty is required. This is a challenge that
governments and world institutions need to take
up with a farsighted social model capable of
countering the new forms of poverty that are now
sweeping the world and will decisively affect
coming decades. If the poor are marginalized, as
if they were to blame for their condition, then
the very concept of democracy is jeopardized and
every social policy will prove bankrupt. With
great humility, we should confess that we are
often incompetent when it comes to the poor. We
talk about them in the abstract; we stop at
statistics and we think we can move people’s
hearts by filming a documentary.
Poverty, on the contrary, should motivate
us to creative planning, aimed at increasing the
freedom needed to live a life of fulfilment
according to the abilities of each person. It is
an illusion, which we should reject, to think
that freedom comes about and grows through the
possession of money. Serving the poor
effectively moves us into action and makes it
possible to find the most suitable ways of
raising and promoting this part of humanity that
all too often is anonymous and voiceless, but
which has imprinted on it the face of the
Saviour who asks for our help.
8. “The poor you will always have with you” (Mk
14:7). This is a summons never to lose sight of
every opportunity to do good. Behind it, we can
glimpse the ancient biblical command: “If one of
your brothers and sisters… is in need, you shall
not harden your heart nor close your hand to
them in their need. Instead, you shall open your
hand to them and freely lend them enough to meet
their need… When you give to them, give freely
and not with ill will; for the Lord, your God,
will bless you for this in all your works and
undertakings. For the needy will never be
lacking in the land…” (Deut 15:7-8, 10-11).
In a similar vein, the Apostle Paul urged
the Christians of his communities to come to the
aid of the poor of the first community of
Jerusalem and to do so “without sadness or
compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2
Cor 9:7). It is not a question of easing our
conscience by giving alms, but of opposing the
culture of indifference and injustice we have
created with regard to the poor.
In this context, we do well to recall the words
of Saint John Chrysostom: “Those who are
generous should not ask for an account of the
poor’s conduct, but only improve their condition
of poverty and satisfy their need. The poor have
only one plea: their poverty and the condition
of need in which they find themselves. Do not
ask anything else of them; but even if they are
the most wicked persons in the world, if they
lack the necessary nourishment, let us free them
from hunger. ... The merciful are like a harbour
for those in need: the harbour welcomes and
frees from danger all those who are shipwrecked;
whether they are evildoers, good persons, or
whatever they may be, the harbour shelters them
within its inlet. You, too, therefore, when you
see on land a man or a woman who has suffered
the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge, do not
ask for an account of their conduct, but deliver
them from their misfortune” (Discourses on the
Poor Man Lazarus, II, 5).
9. It is crucial that we grow in our awareness
of the needs of the poor, which are always
changing, as are their living conditions. Today,
in fact, in the more economically developed
areas of the world, people are less willing than
in the past to confront poverty. The state of
relative affluence to which we have become
accustomed makes it more difficult to accept
sacrifices and deprivation. People are ready to
do anything rather than to be deprived of the
fruits of easy gain. As a result, they fall into
forms of resentment, spasmodic nervousness and
demands that lead to fear, anxiety and, in some
cases, violence.
This is no way to build our future; those
attitudes are themselves forms of poverty which
we cannot disregard. We need to be open to
reading the signs of the times that ask us to
find new ways of being evangelizers in the
contemporary world. Immediate assistance in
responding to the needs of the poor must not
prevent us from showing foresight in
implementing new signs of Christian love and
charity as a response to the new forms of
poverty experienced by humanity today.
It is my hope that the celebration of the World
Day of the Poor, now in its fifth year, will
grow in our local Churches and inspire a
movement of evangelization that meets the poor
personally wherever they may be. We cannot wait
for the poor to knock on our door; we need
urgently to reach them in their homes, in
hospitals and nursing homes, on the streets and
in the dark corners where they sometimes hide,
in shelters and reception centres. It is
important to understand how they feel, what they
are experiencing and what their hearts desire.
Let us make our own the heartfelt plea of Father
Primo Mazzolari: “I beg you not to ask me if
there are poor people, who they are and how many
of them there are, because I fear that those
questions represent a distraction or a pretext
for avoiding a clear appeal to our consciences
and our hearts... I have never counted the poor,
because they cannot be counted: the poor are to
be embraced, not counted” (“Adesso” n. 7 – 15
April 1949). The poor are present in our midst.
How evangelical it would be if we could say with
all truth: we too are poor, because only in this
way will we truly be able to recognize them, to
make them part of our lives and an instrument of
our salvation.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 13 June 2021, Memorial
of Saint Anthony of Padua
FRANCISCUS
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