Pope: It is a grace to see the poor who knock at our
hearts
(Vatican Radio) To truly live
our faith, we must recognize the poor who are near to us. In them, Jesus
Himself knocks at the door of our heart: that was Pope Francis' message during
the morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta on Thursday.
Christians in a bubble of
vanity
In the Gospel of the day,
Jesus tells the parable of the rich man “who dressed in purple garments and
fine linen and dined sumptuously each day,” and who did not recognize that at
his door there was a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. The
Pope invited us to ask ourselves the question: “Am I a Christian in name only,
on the path of lies; or am I a Christian on the path of life, that is, of
works, of actions.” The rich man of the parable, he said, “knew the
commandments, surely went every Saturday to the synagogue, and once a year to
the Temple.” He had “a certain religiosity”:
“But he was a closed man,
closed in his own little world – the world of banquets, of clothes, of vanity,
of friends – a closed man, truly in a bubble of vanity. He didn’t have the
ability to see others, only his own world. And this man did not recognize the
things that happened beyond his closed world. For example, he didn’t think of
the needs of so many people, or of the necessity of accompanying of the sick;
he though only of himself, of his wealth, of his good life: he was given to the
good life.”
The poor man is the Lord,
who knocks at the door of our heart
The rich man, then, had the
appearance of being religious, but did not know the “peripheries,” he was
completely “closed in on himself.” It is precisely the “peripheries” on his
very doorstep that he could not see. He took the “way of falsehood,” because he
“trusted only in himself, in his things – he did not trust in God.” He was a
man who wasn’t able to properly receive his inheritance, or live his life,
because “he was closed in on himself.” And, the Pope said, “it is curious – the
man had lost his name. It says only that he was a rich man, and when your name
is only an adjective, it is because you have lost [something], you have lost
substance, you have lost strength."
“This wealth, this is power,
this can accomplish anything, this is a priest with a career, a bishop with a
career… How many times [do] we [do this]?... It amounts to naming people with
adjectives, not with names, because they have no substance. But I ask myself,
‘Did not God, who is a Father, have mercy on this man? Did He not knock on his
heart to move him?” But yes, he was at the door, in the person of that man
Lazarus, who had a name. And Lazarus, with his needs and his sorrows, his
illnesses – it was the Lord Himself who was knocking at the door, so that this
man would open his heart and mercy would be able to enter. But no, he did not
see, he was simply closed: for him, outside the door there was nothing.”
The grace to see the poor
We are in Lent, the Pope noted,
and it would do us good to ask ourselves what path we are travelling on:
“‘Am I on the road of life,
or on the road of lies? How many ways is my heart still closed? Where is my
joy: in doing, or in speaking? In going out of myself to meet others, to help
them? The works of mercy, eh? Or is my joy in having everything organized,
closed in on myself?’ Let us ask the Lord, while we’re thinking about it – no,
throughout our life – for the grace of always seeing the Lazarus at our door,
the Lazarus who knocks at our heart, and [the grace] to go out of ourselves
with generosity, with the attitude of mercy, so that the mercy of God can enter
into our hearts.
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