poor people – Santuario de San Antonio Parish

Last February, Pope Francis asked pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square to reflect on how to help the needy. It is true we have dropped a few coins for the poor; we have given baskets to them during Christmas season; we have donated food and clothes during disasters; and some of us have organized foundations to alleviate poverty.

Pope Francis said that those of us who help the poor cannot be afraid to touch them. He said, “If we are to be imitators of Christ before the poor or the sick, we should not be afraid to look the afflicted person in the eye, and be close to the suffering person with tenderness and compassion.”

It is possible we have been giving without loving the poor. We give out of obligation. We give to obtain peace. We give to feel good. Let’s be honest, we often think that we are superior, and we look down on them simply because they are poor and weak. We shudder at their external appearances for we are afraid to catch some contagious germs, to get dirty, or to be robbed. We are disturbed by their smell or their unrefined manners.

To love and imitate God, we have to learn to embrace and welcome the poor with compassion. “Contact is the true language of communication,” Pope Francis said, “How many healings can we perform if only we learn this language!”

One day St. Francis was riding his horse near Assisi, when he met a leper. He had always felt an overpowering horror of lepers, but he realized that if he was going to devote his life to the poor he had to welcome him as a brother. So he dismounted from the horse, gave him a coin, and kissed him. This encounter with the leper was the turning point of Francis’ life as he became a champion of the poor.

Blessed Mother Teresa wrote, “To serve the poor, we must love them.” Yet we know it is not easy to love them when we are bothered by their distressing outward appearances. Mother Teresa advised us that we have to look into their hearts and see human beings in need of love and understanding. We have to see the face of the crucified Jesus in those who are suffering: the poor, the sick, the prisoners, the abandoned, including the sinners. We will be able to do this only when we look through the eyes of faith and through the eyes of love.

Jesus said: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was naked, and you clothed me.” (Matt 25:35,36)

May our whole lives be a concern for others especially the poor. May we fearlessly reach out to help them; for when we look into their eyes, we can only exclaim, “It is You, Lord!”

(Reference: Pope Francis: When you help the sick, are you afraid to touch them? (Feb.16, 2015); Catholic News Story: Pope tells new cardinals to evangelize fearlessly (Feb. 16, 2015); Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love & Secrets of Sanctity by Susan Conroy; ChristianHistory.net ”Meet St. Francis (Aug. 8, 2008))

We know the rich has much to give to the poor. And we were taken by surprise when Pope Francis told those who give others to allow themselves to receive. At UST, he said: “Become a beggar. This is what you still lack. Learn how to beg. This isn’t easy to understand… Do you know you too are poor? Do you know your own poverty and you need to receive? Do you let yourselves be evangelized by those you serve?… Do you ask the poor to give you the wisdom they have?”

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said: “The poor people are great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Maybe they have nothing to eat, maybe they have no home in which to live, but they are great people.” They teach us by their faith in God, their humility, and their patience in suffering. Mother Teresa often told the story about a man whom the Sisters picked up from the drain, half eaten with worms. He was dying, but he was not bitter. Rather, he was happy and grateful, knowing that he was going to die at least with someone loving him when he was brought to the Home for the Dying. Mother Teresa said, “It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man who could speak like that, who could die like that without blaming anybody, without cursing anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel – this is the greatness of our people.”

St. Josemaria considered the sick and the poor his “treasures.” When he had to start Opus Dei, he was only twenty-six years old and without money. He went to the hospitals and poor districts of Madrid and begged those people to offer up their sufferings, their hours in bed, and their loneliness to God for his apostolate. And because of their prayers and mortifications, the Lord has taken Opus Dei all over the world!

The poor people are God’s gift to us. They provide us the experience to put our love into action. They allow us to help them. And in doing so, we are serving Him. “Every work of love brings a person face to face with God,” Mother Teresa said, “Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.” We owe a debt of gratitude to them.
Mother Teresa said, “We call them poor, but they are rich in love!” The poor people do certainly have much to share. We should never look down on them.

(Reference: Pope Francis’ speech at UST, January 18, 2015; “Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love & Secrets of Sanctity” by Susan Conroy; “Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer: a profile of the Founder of Opus Dei” by Salvador Bernal)