Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the World Day of the Poor 2024

Pope Francis celebrated Mass this Sunday for the VIII World Day of the Poor with a call not to look away from the needs of others, but to touch the hand of the poor and bring them the hope that God does not forget them.

The Eucharist was celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica, from which the Pontiff focused his homily on two human realities: anguish and hope. The first, a drama of our times amplified by the media with news that makes “the world more insecure and the future more uncertain.”

Likewise, he continued, “today’s Gospel opens with a scenario that projects the people’s tribulation into the cosmos, and does so using apocalyptic language: ‘The sun will darken, the moon will stop shining, the stars will fall from the sky and the stars will be moved.’”

The Pope clarified that anguish is a feeling that will prevail if the gaze only stays on the narration of the events and does not open itself to the hope with which Jesus continues: Then “the Son of Man will be seen coming on the clouds, full of power and glory. And He will send the angels to gather His chosen ones from the four cardinal points, from one end of the horizon to the other.”

In that sense, the Holy Father said that although “today we also see the sun darken and the moon go out” with the hunger and scarcity that many people suffer, the horrors of war and innocent deaths, Jesus “ignites hope.” in the middle of that apocalyptic picture.

We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by discouragement or carried away by those who think that “the world is like this” and “there is nothing I can do” – the Pope expressed – because this is forgetting that God acts within the drama of history. and reduce the Christian faith “to a passive devotion, which does not bother the powers of this world and does not produce any concrete commitment to charity.”

Christ, he assured, “completely opens our horizon, lengthening our gaze so that we learn to welcome, even in the precariousness and pain of the world, the presence of the love of God that becomes close, that does not abandon us, that acts to our salvation.”

Touch the hand of the poor

In his homily, Pope Francis also recalled that Jesus becomes close to those in need “with our Christian proximity, with our Christian brotherhood.”

“It is not about throwing a coin into the hands of someone in need. I ask someone who gives alms two things: Do you touch people’s hands or do you throw the coin at them without touching them? Do you look the person you help in the eyes or do you look away?” he asked.

Likewise, he shared that a while ago he saw an image captured by a Roman photographer that “portrayed an adult couple, almost elderly, leaving a restaurant in winter. The lady was well covered in a fur coat and so was the man. At the door was a poor lady, sitting on the floor, asking for alms, and they were both looking the other way.”

“This happens every day. Let us ask ourselves: do I turn a blind eye when I see the poverty, the need, the pain of others?”, the Pontiff questioned again, and called to have “a faith that opens our eyes to the suffering of the world and to to the unhappiness of the poor, to exercise the same compassion of Christ.”

“Do I have the same compassion as the Lord towards the poor, towards those who have no work, have nothing to eat, are marginalized by society? And we must not only focus on the major problems of global poverty, but also on the little that we can all do in our daily lives,” he stated.

Pope Francis noted that the disciples of Christ are called to sow hope in the world, lighting “lights of justice and solidarity while the shadows of a closed world expand.”

“And I say it to the Church, I say it to governments, I say it to international organizations, I say it to each and everyone: please, let us not forget the poor.”

Finally, he recalled a warning from Cardinal Carlo María Martini, who “said that we must be careful of thinking that first there is the Church, already consolidated in itself, and then the poor that we choose to take care of.”

“In reality, we become the Church of Jesus to the extent to which we serve the poor, because only in this way ‘the Church ‘becomes’ itself, that is, the Church becomes a house open to all, a place of compassion for all. God for the life of every man.”