VATICAN CITY (CNS) — People cannot sit back and be indifferent or unresponsive to growing poverty in the world as a privileged minority accumulates “ostentatious wealth,” Pope Francis said. “God created the heavens and the earth for all; yet sadly some have erected barriers, walls and fences, betraying the original gift meant for all humanity, with none excluded,” the pope said in a message for the first World Day of the Poor.
The newly established commemoration and the period of reflection and action preceding it are meant to help Christians develop and maintain a more consistent and sincere lifestyle built on sharing, simplicity and the essential truths of the Gospel, the pope said.
The World Day of the Poor – to be marked each year on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary time – will be celebrated Nov. 19 this year and will focus on the Apostle John’s call to love “not with words, but with deeds.”
There are so many forms of material and spiritual poverty that poison people’s hearts and harm their dignity, the pope said, and “we must respond with a new vision of life and society.”
Too often Christians have taken on “a worldly way of thinking” and forgotten to keep their gaze and goals focused on Christ, who is present in those who are broken and vulnerable.
An admonition by St. John Chrysostom “remains ever timely,” the pope said, quoting: “If you want to honor the body of Christ, do not scorn it when it is naked; do not honor the eucharistic Christ with silk vestments and then, leaving the Church, neglect the other Christ suffering from cold and nakedness.”
“Poverty has the face of women, men and children exploited by base interests, crushed by the machinations of power and money,” the pope said.
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