Begun by Pope Francis, and added to by Pope Leo, “Delexi Te” (“I have loved you,” from Rev 3:9), a formal letter known as an Apostolic Exhortation, that urges all Christians to love and care for the poor was issued last week in Rome. This piece contains some highlights from their exhortation.
“I am happy to make this document my own – adding some reflections – and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate, since I share the desire of my beloved predecessor that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor,” Leo wrote.
Early in the letter the Popes talk of Christ: “Jesus’ disciples criticized the woman who poured costly perfumed oil on his head. They said: ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ However, the Lord said to them in response: ‘You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me’ (Mt 26:8-9,11). That woman saw in Jesus the lowly and suffering Messiah on whom she could pour out all her love. What comfort that anointing must have brought to the very head that within a few days would be pierced by thorns! It was a small gesture, of course, but those who suffer know how great even a small gesture of affection can be, and how much relief it can bring. Jesus understood this and told the disciples that the memory of her gesture would endure: ‘Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her’ (Mt 26:13). The simplicity of that woman’s gesture speaks volumes. No sign of affection, even the smallest, will ever be forgotten, especially if it is shown to those who are suffering, lonely or in need, as was the Lord at that time.
“Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, ‘The poor you will always have with you’ (Mt 26:11), also promises the disciples: ‘I am with you always’ (Mt 28:20). We likewise think of his saying: ‘Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40). This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.”
The Cry of the Poor
“I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the Church and for society, if we can only set ourselves free of our self-centeredness and open our ears to their cry.
“The passage of Sacred Scripture in which God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush can serve as a constant starting-point for this effort. There he says: ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them… So come, I will send you’ ( Ex 3:7-8,10). [7] God thus shows his concern for the needs of the poor: ‘When the Israelites cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer’ ( Judg 3:15). In hearing the cry of the poor, we are asked to enter into the heart of God, who is always concerned for the needs of his children, especially those in greatest need. If we remain unresponsive to that cry, the poor might well cry out to the Lord against us, and we would incur guilt (cf. Deut 15:9) and turn away from the very heart of God.”
Jesus the poor Messiah
“The Gospel shows us that poverty marked every aspect of Jesus’ life. From the moment he entered the world, Jesus knew the bitter experience of rejection. The Evangelist Luke tells how Joseph and Mary, who was about to give birth, arrived in Bethlehem, and then adds, poignantly, that ‘there was no place for them in the inn’ (Lk 2:7). Jesus was born in humble surroundings and laid in a manger; then, to save him from being killed, they fled to Egypt (cf. Mt 2:13-15). At the dawn of his public ministry, after announcing in the synagogue of Nazareth that the year of grace which would bring joy to the poor was fulfilled in him, he was driven out of town (cf. Lk 4:14-30). He died as an outcast, led out of Jerusalem to be crucified (cf. Mk 15:22). Indeed, that is how Jesus’ poverty is best described: he experienced the same exclusion that is the lot of the poor, the outcast of society. Jesus is a manifestation of this privilegium pauperum. He presented himself to the world not only as a poor Messiah, but also as the Messiah of and for the poor.
“There are some clues about Jesus’ social status. First of all, he worked as a craftsman or carpenter, téktōn (cf. Mk 6:3). These were people who earned their living by manual labor. Not owning land, they were considered inferior to farmers. When the baby Jesus was presented in the Temple by Joseph and Mary, his parents offered a pair of turtledoves or pigeons (cf. Lk 2:22-24), which according to the prescriptions of the Book of Leviticus (cf. 12:8) was the offering of the poor. A fairly significant episode in the Gospel tells us how Jesus, together with his disciples, gathered heads of grain to eat as they passed through the fields (cf. Mk 2:23-28). Only the poor were allowed to do this gleaning in the fields. Moreover, Jesus says of himself: ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Mt 8:20; Lk9:58). He is, in fact, an itinerant teacher, whose poverty and precariousness are signs of his bond with the Father.”
Jesus’ teaching on the Poor
“Jesus’ teaching on the primacy of love for God is clearly complemented by his insistence that one cannot love God without extending one’s love to the poor. Love for our neighbor is tangible proof of the authenticity of our love for God, as the Apostle John attests: ‘No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us… God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them’ (1 Jn 4:12,16). The two loves are distinct yet inseparable. Even in cases where there is no explicit reference to God, the Lord himself teaches that every act of love for one’s neighbor is in some way a reflection of divine charity: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’ (Mt 25:40).
“For this reason, works of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship, which, while giving praise to God, has the task of opening us to the transformation that the Spirit can bring about in us, so that we may all become an image of Christ and his mercy towards the weakest. In this sense, our relationship with the Lord, expressed in worship, also aims to free us from the risk of living our relationships according to a logic of calculation and self-interest. We are instead open to the gratuitousness that surrounds those who love one another and, therefore, share everything in common. In this regard, Jesus advises: ‘When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you’ (Lk 14:12-14).
At the side of the least among us
“Christian holiness often flourishes in the most forgotten and wounded places of humanity. The poorest of the poor — those who lack not only material goods but also a voice and the recognition of their dignity — have a special place in God’s heart. They are the beloved of the Gospel, the heirs to the Kingdom (cf. Lk 6:20). It is in them that Christ continues to suffer and rise again. It is in them that the Church rediscovers her call to show her most authentic self.
“Saint Teresa of Calcutta, canonized in 2016, has become a universal icon of charity lived to the fullest extent in favor of the most destitute, those discarded by society. Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, she dedicated her life to the dying abandoned on the streets of India. She gathered the rejected, washed their wounds and accompanied them to the moment of death with the tenderness of prayer. Her love for the poorest of the poor meant that she did not only take care of their material needs, but also proclaimed the good news of the Gospel to them: ‘We are wanting to proclaim the good news to the poor that God loves them, that we love them, that they are somebody to us, that they too have been created by the same loving hand of God, to love and to be loved. Our poor people are great people, are very lovable people, they do not need our pity and sympathy, they need our understanding love. They need our respect; they need that we treat them with dignity.’ [67] All this came from a deep spirituality that saw service to the poorest as the fruit of prayer and love, the source of true peace, as Pope John Paul II reminded the pilgrims who came to Rome for her beatification: ‘Where did Mother Teresa find the strength to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart. She herself said as much: “The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service.” It was prayer that filled her heart with Christ’s own peace and enabled her to radiate that peace to others.’ [68] Teresa did not consider herself a philanthropist or an activist, but a bride of Christ crucified, serving with total love her suffering brothers and sisters.”
The dictatorship of an economy that kills
“We must continue, then, to denounce the ‘dictatorship of an economy that kills,’ and to recognize that ‘while the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is being born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.’ [Quoting Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium ] [94] There is no shortage of theories attempting to justify the present state of affairs or to explain that economic thinking requires us to wait for invisible market forces to resolve everything. Nevertheless, the dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our consciences.
“In his Encyclical Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis reminded us that social sin consolidates a ‘structure of sin’ within society, and is frequently ‘part of a dominant mindset that considers normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference. This then gives rise to social alienation.’ [95] It then becomes normal to ignore the poor and live as if they do not exist. It then likewise seems reasonable to organize the economy in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful. Meanwhile, the poor are promised only a few ‘drops’ that trickle down, until the next global crisis brings things back to where they were. A genuine form of alienation is present when we limit ourselves to theoretical excuses instead of seeking to resolve the concrete problems of those who suffer. Saint John Paul II had already observed that, “a society is alienated if its forms of social organization, production and consumption make it more difficult to offer the gift of self and to establish solidarity between people.’ [96]
Final exhortations
“Saint John Chrysostom is known for saying: ‘Almsgiving is the wing of prayer. If you do not provide your prayer with wings, it will hardly fly.’ [129] In the same vein, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus concluded one of his celebrated orations with these words: ‘If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and co-heirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others. The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice… Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places.’
“Our love and our deepest convictions need to be continually cultivated, and we do so through our concrete actions. Remaining in the realm of ideas and theories, while failing to give them expression through frequent and practical acts of charity, will eventually cause even our most cherished hopes and aspirations to weaken and fade away. For this very reason, we Christians must not abandon almsgiving. It can be done in different ways, and surely more effectively, but it must continue to be done. It is always better at least to do something rather than nothing. Whatever form it may take, almsgiving will touch and soften our hardened hearts. It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility. For our part, we need to give alms as a way of reaching out and touching the suffering flesh of the poor.
“Christian love breaks down every barrier, brings close those who were distant, unites strangers, and reconciles enemies. It spans chasms that are humanly impossible to bridge, and it penetrates to the most hidden crevices of society. By its very nature, Christian love is prophetic: it works miracles and knows no limits. It makes what was apparently impossible happen. Love is above all a way of looking at life and a way of living it. A Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love, is the Church that the world needs today.”
Image: Pope Leo XIV. Image Credit; Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar