by Father Emiliano Antenucci
The theme of the eighth World Day of the Poor is: “The prayer of the poor rises to God (Sir 21.5)”. The etymology of the word prayer (from the Latin prex precis) means precarious, beggar, poor. He who prays feels small before the infinite, a beggar before Heaven, last before the Lord of the universe. The poor are our teachers of life, because we are not the ones who help the poor, but they remind us of the radical nature of the Gospel.
Saint Francis, the poor man of Assisi, as a bourgeois, chooses to marry “Madonna Poverty”, to have the bare earth as his bed and the starry sky as his roof. He chooses poverty, but also to live with lepers. Poverty can be an evangelical choice or one suffered by the misfortunes of life. Pope Francis writes in his message: “The poor have a privileged place in the heart of God, to the point that, in the face of their suffering, God is “impatient” until he has given them justice: «The prayer of the poor passes through the clouds nor does it rest until it has arrived ; he does not desist until the Almighty has intervened and made satisfaction for the righteous and restored equity. The Lord will certainly not delay or show patience towards them” (Sir 35,21-22). God knows the suffering of his children, because he is an attentive and caring Father towards everyone. As a Father, he takes care of those who need it most: the poor, the marginalized, the suffering, the forgotten… But no one is excluded from his heart, since, before him, we are all poor and needy” .
The Pontiff gives an evangelical method to help others and writes: “stop, get closer, give a little attention, a smile, a caress, a word of comfort…”. The papal message warns against simple philanthropy and the temptation of activism: “However, charity without prayer risks becoming philanthropy that soon runs out… We must avoid this temptation and always be vigilant with the strength and perseverance that comes from the Holy Spirit who is the giver of life.” The servant of God Don Oreste Benzi said that “the poor are not those who have nothing, but those who are nothing”. Today there is a lot of poverty, it is not material. There is great cultural, educational, existential, emotional and spiritual poverty. Perhaps instead of just delivering “Caritas food parcels”, we should donate books for studying, pens for writing, brushes for drawing, musical instruments for playing, tools for working, rosaries for praying and Bibles for meditating. We will avoid a lot of crime news, baby gangs and various forms of violence. In the midst of the sixty world conflicts, peace is urgent, because as the Pope says: “We are poor in peace and we hold out our hands to welcome it as a precious gift and at the same time we are committed to mending it in everyday life.”
between Emiliano Antenucci
