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(Vatican Radio) The Vatican on Tuesday released Pope Francis' message for the First World Day of the Poor which will be observed later this year on the 19th of November.

Please find the English translation of the message below: 

Message of His Holiness Pope Francis

for the First World Day of the Poor

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

19 November 2017

Let us love, not with words but with deeds

1.         “Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18).  These words of the Apostle John voice an imperative that no Christian may disregard.  The seriousness with which the “beloved disciple” hands down Jesus’ command to our own day is made even clearer by the contrast between the empty words so frequently on our lips and the concrete deeds against which we are called to measure ourselves.  Love has no alibi.  Whenever we set out to love as Jesus loved, we have to take the Lord as our example; especially when it comes to loving the poor.  The Son of God’s way of loving is well-known, and John spells it out clearly.  It stands on two pillars: God loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:10.19), and he loved us by giving completely of himself, even to laying down his life (cf. 1 Jn 3:16).

            Such love cannot go unanswered.  Even though offered unconditionally, asking nothing in return, it so sets hearts on fire that all who experience it are led to love back, despite their limitations and sins.  Yet this can only happen if we welcome God’s grace, his merciful charity, as fully as possible into our hearts, so that our will and even our emotions are drawn to love both God and neighbour.  In this way, the mercy that wells up – as it were – from the heart of the Trinity can shape our lives and bring forth compassion and works of mercy for the benefit of our brothers and sisters in need.

2.         “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him” (Ps 34:6).  The Church has always understood the importance of this cry.  We possess an outstanding testimony to this in the very first pages of the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter asks that seven men, “full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (6:3), be chosen for the ministry of caring for the poor.  This is certainly one of the first signs of the entrance of the Christian community upon the world’s stage: the service of the poor.  The earliest community realized that being a disciple of Jesus meant demonstrating fraternity and solidarity, in obedience to the Master’s proclamation that the poor are blessed and heirs to the Kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 5:3).

            “They sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:45).  In these words, we see clearly expressed the lively concern of the first Christians.  The evangelist Luke, who more than any other speaks of mercy, does not exaggerate when he describes the practice of sharing in the early community.  On the contrary, his words are addressed to believers in every generation, and thus also to us, in order to sustain our own witness and to encourage our care for those most in need.  The same message is conveyed with similar conviction by the Apostle James.  In his Letter, he spares no words: “Listen, my beloved brethren.  Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonoured the poor man.  Is it not the rich who oppress you, and drag you into court? ... What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works?  Can his faith save him?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giving them the things needed for the body; what does it profit?  So faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead’ (2:5-6.14-17).

3.         Yet there have been times when Christians have not fully heeded this appeal, and have assumed a worldly way of thinking.  Yet the Holy Spirit has not failed to call them to keep their gaze fixed on what is essential.  He has raised up men and women who, in a variety of ways, have devoted their lives to the service of the poor.  Over these two thousand years, how many pages of history have been written by Christians who, in utter simplicity and humility, and with generous and creative charity, have served their poorest brothers and sisters!

            The most outstanding example is that of Francis of Assisi, followed by many other holy men and women over the centuries.  He was not satisfied to embrace lepers and give them alms, but chose to go to Gubbio to stay with them.  He saw this meeting as the turning point of his conversion: “When I was in my sins, it seemed a thing too bitter to look on lepers, and the Lord himself led me among them and I showed them mercy.  And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of mind and body” (Text 1-3: FF 110).  This testimony shows the transformative power of charity and the Christian way of life.

            We may think of the poor simply as the beneficiaries of our occasional volunteer work, or of impromptu acts of generosity that appease our conscience.  However good and useful such acts may be for making us sensitive to people’s needs and the injustices that are often their cause, they ought to lead to a true encounter with the poor and a sharing that becomes a way of life.  Our prayer and our journey of discipleship and conversion find the confirmation of their evangelic authenticity in precisely such charity and sharing.  This way of life gives rise to joy and peace of soul, because we touch with our own hands the flesh of Christ.  If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist.  The Body of Christ, broken in the sacred liturgy, can be seen, through charity and sharing, in the faces and persons of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.  Saint John Chrysostom’s admonition remains ever timely: “If you want to honour the body of Christ, do not scorn it when it is naked; do not honour the Eucharistic Christ with silk vestments, and then, leaving the church, neglect the other Christ suffering from cold and nakedness” (Hom. in Matthaeum, 50.3: PG 58). 

            We are called, then, to draw near to the poor, to encounter them, to meet their gaze, to embrace them and to let them feel the warmth of love that breaks through their solitude.  Their outstretched hand is also an invitation to step out of our certainties and comforts, and to acknowledge the value of poverty in itself.

4.         Let us never forget that, for Christ’s disciples, poverty is above all a call to follow Jesus in his own poverty.  It means walking behind him and beside him, a journey that leads to the beatitude of the Kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 5:3; Lk 6:20).  Poverty means having a humble heart that accepts our creaturely limitations and sinfulness and thus enables us to overcome the temptation to feel omnipotent and immortal.  Poverty is an interior attitude that avoids looking upon money, career and luxury as our goal in life and the condition for our happiness.  Poverty instead creates the conditions for freely shouldering our personal and social responsibilities, despite our limitations, with trust in God’s closeness and the support of his grace.  Poverty, understood in this way, is the yardstick that allows us to judge how best to use material goods and to build relationships that are neither selfish nor possessive (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 25-45).

            Let us, then, take as our example Saint Francis and his witness of authentic poverty.  Precisely because he kept his gaze fixed on Christ, Francis was able to see and serve him in the poor.  If we want to help change history and promote real development, we need to hear the cry of the poor and commit ourselves to ending their marginalization.  At the same time, I ask the poor in our cities and our communities not to lose the sense of evangelical poverty that is part of their daily life.

5.         We know how hard it is for our contemporary world to see poverty clearly for what it is.  Yet in myriad ways poverty challenges us daily, in faces marked by suffering, marginalization, oppression, violence, torture and imprisonment, war, deprivation of freedom and dignity, ignorance and illiteracy, medical emergencies and shortage of work, trafficking and slavery, exile, extreme poverty and forced migration.  Poverty has the face of women, men and children exploited by base interests, crushed by the machinations of power and money.  What a bitter and endless list we would have to compile were we to add the poverty born of social injustice, moral degeneration, the greed of a chosen few, and generalized indifference!

            Tragically, in our own time, even as ostentatious wealth accumulates in the hands of the privileged few, often in connection with illegal activities and the appalling exploitation of human dignity, there is a scandalous growth of poverty in broad sectors of society throughout our world.  Faced with this scenario, we cannot remain passive, much less resigned.  There is a poverty that stifles the spirit of initiative of so many young people by keeping them from finding work.  There is a poverty that dulls the sense of personal responsibility and leaves others to do the work while we go looking for favours.  There is a poverty that poisons the wells of participation and allows little room for professionalism; in this way it demeans the merit of those who do work and are productive.  To all these forms of poverty we must respond with a new vision of life and society.

            All the poor – as Blessed Paul VI loved to say – belong to the Church by “evangelical right” (Address at the Opening of the Second Session of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 29 September 1963), and require of us a fundamental option on their behalf.  Blessed, therefore, are the open hands that embrace the poor and help them: they are hands that bring hope.  Blessed are the hands that reach beyond every barrier of culture, religion and nationality, and pour the balm of consolation over the wounds of humanity.  Blessed are the open hands that ask nothing in exchange, with no “ifs” or “buts” or “maybes”: they are hands that call down God’s blessing upon their brothers and sisters.

6.         At the conclusion of the Jubilee of Mercy, I wanted to offer the Church a World Day of the Poor, so that throughout the world Christian communities can become an ever greater sign of Christ’s charity for the least and those most in need.  To the World Days instituted by my Predecessors, which are already a tradition in the life of our communities, I wish to add this one, which adds to them an exquisitely evangelical fullness, that is, Jesus’ preferential love for the poor.

            I invite the whole Church, and men and women of good will everywhere, to turn their gaze on this day to all those who stretch out their hands and plead for our help and solidarity.  They are our brothers and sisters, created and loved by the one Heavenly Father.  This Day is meant, above all, to encourage believers to react against a culture of discard and waste, and to embrace the culture of encounter.  At the same time, everyone, independent of religious affiliation, is invited to openness and sharing with the poor through concrete signs of solidarity and fraternity.  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.

7.         It is my wish that, in the week preceding the World Day of the Poor, which falls this year on 19 November, the Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Christian communities will make every effort to create moments of encounter and friendship, solidarity and concrete assistance.  They can invite the poor and volunteers to take part together in the Eucharist on this Sunday, in such a way that there be an even more authentic celebration of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on the following Sunday.  The kingship of Christ is most evident on Golgotha, when the Innocent One, nailed to the cross, poor, naked and stripped of everything, incarnates and reveals the fullness of God’s love.  Jesus’ complete abandonment to the Father expresses his utter poverty and reveals the power of the Love that awakens him to new life on the day of the Resurrection.

            This Sunday, if there are poor people where we live who seek protection and assistance, let us draw close to them: it will be a favourable moment to encounter the God we seek.  Following the teaching of Scripture (cf. Gen 18:3-5; Heb 13:2), let us welcome them as honoured guests at our table; they can be teachers who help us live the faith more consistently.  With their trust and readiness to receive help, they show us in a quiet and often joyful way, how essential it is to live simply and to abandon ourselves to God’s providence.

8.         At the heart of all the many concrete initiatives carried out on this day should always be prayer.  Let us not forget that the Our Father is the prayer of the poor.  Our asking for bread expresses our entrustment to God for our basic needs in life.  Everything that Jesus taught us in this prayer expresses and brings together the cry of all who suffer from life’s uncertainties and the lack of what they need.  When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he answered in the words with which the poor speak to our one Father, in whom all acknowledge themselves as brothers and sisters.  The Our Father is a prayer said in the plural: the bread for which we ask is “ours”, and that entails sharing, participation and joint responsibility.  In this prayer, all of us recognize our need to overcome every form of selfishness, in order to enter into the joy of mutual acceptance.

9.         I ask my brother Bishops, and all priests and deacons who by their vocation have the mission of supporting the poor, together with all consecrated persons and all associations, movements and volunteers everywhere, to help make this World Day of the Poor a tradition that concretely contributes to evangelization in today’s world.

            This new World Day, therefore, should become a powerful appeal to our consciences as believers, allowing us to grow in the conviction that sharing with the poor enables us to understand the deepest truth of the Gospel.  The poor are not a problem: they are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practise in our lives the essence of the Gospel.

From the Vatican, 13 June 2017

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua

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(Vatican Radio) The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops announced a new website on Tuesday, in preparation for the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October, 2018.

The Synod Assembly is to be dedicated to the role of young people in the life of the Church.

A statement from the Secretariat explains that the site is designed to promote the broad, interactive participation of young people from all around the world in preparations for the Assembly.

The new website includes an online questionnaire addressed directly to young people in different languages ??(Italian, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese).

Answers will have to be sent to the General Secretariat by 30 November 2017.

The statement goes on to encourage young people especially to visit the site and respond to the Questionnaire, saying that wide and fulsome response will be of great use in the process of preparing the Synod Assembly, and will be part of the extensive consultation that the General Secretariat is doing at all levels of the people of God.

The website will be active from June 14^th of this year (2017), and may be found at the following address: http://youth.synod2018.va

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis’ Message for the first World Day of the Poor, to be observed on November 19th, was presented to journalists on Tuesday at the Holy See press office.

Listen to our report: 

In the message entitled, “Let us love, not with words but with deeds”, Pope Francis explains that at the conclusion of the Jubilee of Mercy, he wanted to offer the Church a World Day of the Poor, “so that throughout the world Christian communities can become an ever greater sign of Christ’s charity for the least and those most in need.”

He goes on to invite “the whole Church, and men and women of good will everywhere, to turn their gaze on this day to all those who stretch out their hands and plead for our help and solidarity.”

Presenting the message to journalists at the Holy See press office on Tuesday, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, which organized the Jubilee of Mercy, explained that this World Day of the Poor was announced spontaneously by Pope Francis.

Archbishop Fisichella said that on the 13th November 2016 while Cathedrals around the world were closing their Holy Doors, the Pope was looking into the eyes of those present in St Peter’s Basilica during Mass to celebrate the Jubilee dedicated to the Socially Marginalized. In the preceding days the Holy Father, continued the Archbishop, heard many emotional stories of people in difficulty. He went on to say that Pope Francis probably decided at the end of his homily to announce this day having heard so many moving accounts of hardship.

The Holy Father’s message, draws from the life of St Francis and he comments that “precisely because he kept his gaze fixed on Christ, Francis was able to see and serve him in the poor. “

The Pope notes that “if we want to help change history and promote real development, we need to hear the cry of the poor and commit ourselves to ending their marginalization.” 

The challenge of Poverty

Pope Francis also writes about how poverty challenges us “daily, in faces marked by suffering, marginalization, oppression, violence, torture and imprisonment, war, deprivation of freedom and dignity, ignorance and illiteracy, medical emergencies and shortage of work, trafficking and slavery, exile, extreme poverty and forced migration.” 

There is also a poverty, the Pope highlights, “that stifles the spirit of initiative of so many young people by keeping them from finding work.”

Faced with this scenario, Pope Francis stresses, “we cannot remain passive, much less resigned.”

Concluding his message the Holy Father, underlines that, “the poor are not a problem: they are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practise in our lives the essence of the Gospel.”

The World Day of the Poor will be observed on November 19th 2017.

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The Buddhist community of Bangladesh’s capital once more came out with its marvelous gesture of ‎inter-faith harmony, offering poor and hungry Muslims the iftar, the evening meal that comes after the ‎dawn to dusk Islamic fast during the sacred month of Ramadan.  Since 2013 this initiative of the ‎Dhammarajika Buddhist monastery in Dhaka’s Basabo has been contributing to the well-being of a  ‎society that has recently seen a surge in Islamic radicalism targeting minority communities.  ‎
At sunset, a long line of people wait outside the monastery gate. Each day from 350 to 400 meals are ‎prepared, distributed in a cardboard box.  Inside, potato pancakes, batter fried onion and brinjal slices, ‎lentil dumplings, dates, puffed rice and a sugar syrup sweet.‎
According to monks, the holy month is the "best opportunity to help Muslims." The project is born from ‎the will of the venerable Shuddhanando Mohathero, the highest authority of the temple. He believes ‎that "humanity is the ultimate goal of human beings".‎
Dhammarajika Buddhist monastery was founded in 1951.  Monk Karuna Bhikkhu states that the goal is ‎to establish good relations with the majority Islamic community. In the country Buddhists represent less ‎than 1% of the population, over a total of 160 million inhabitants.  For Sakhina, a Muslim woman who ‎cannot afford the cost of the meal, food freely distributed by monks is a real blessing. "Here we are ‎accorded the respect we should have from our own fellow believers," Sakhina said.  (Source: AsiaNews)‎

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Vilnius, Lithuania, Jun 13, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Soviet-era priest and bishop who continually defied communist rule and spent much of his ministry in prison will be beatified later this month in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis was declared a martyr by Pope Francis Dec. 16, clearing the way for his beatification.

Archbishop Matulionis was known for his heroism and determination in faith in the midst of the harsh atheism of the Soviet regimes which ruled the countries in which he served.

Born in Kudoriškis, in what is now Lithuania, in 1873, Archbishop Matulionis was the second son of a farming family, and seemed to be drawn to the religious life from an early age.

In 1900 he was ordained a priest in what is now Belarus, where his zeal for the faith immediately raised the suspicions of the authorities of the Russian Empire, which was closely aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1909, he was sentenced by a court for baptizing a child from a mixed Orthodox and Catholic family, a sentence he served in a Dominican convent.

In 1917, he witnessed the violent persecution of the Church under the Bolshevik Revolution. And in 1923, he was sentenced to three years in Moscow prisons for refusing to sign an act on the appropriation of church property and buildings.

Released a year ahead of time and allowed to return to Lithuania, the priest chose instead to go back to his parish in St. Petersburg, where he was secretly ordained a bishop in 1929.

Soviet trouble never far behind, the bishop found himself in prison again in 1929, where this time he was subjected to solitary confinement, and then to hard labor and malnourishment, which took its toll on his health. He was eventually released in an exchange of prisoners between Lithuania and the Soviet Union in 1933.

Upon his release, Bishop Teofilius paid a visit to Pius XI, who praised his heroism. When Teofilius knelt down in front of the Pope, the Holy Father had the bishop stand and instead knelt down himself, saying: “You are a martyr! You must bless me first!”

During the visit of a group of Lithuanian pilgrims to Rome in 1936 Pius XI again praised Bishop Teofilius: “Glory be to the Lithuanian nation that gave us a hero like him!”

In 1943 he was appointed Bishop of  Kaišiadorys.

While he was free, Bishop Teofilius traveled to the United States of America, Rome, the Holy Land, and the Sinai Peninsula.

Afterwards he returned to Kaunas, Lithuania, where, despite Soviet and Nazi threats, the bishop spoke out boldly against the regimes, their destruction of churches, and religious persecution. This led, again, to his arrest in 1946.

Ten years later, the depleted but not defeated bishop came to Birštonas, where he secretly ordained another bishop, and was subsequently punished for his actions by being sent to Šeduva, where his communications were tapped and his room regularly searched by Soviet authorities.

In 1962, he received notice from Rome that he had been made an archbishop and that he was invited to participate in the Second Vatican Council, but he would ultimately be unable to attend. During a “search”, the archbishop was given a lethal injection under the pretense of sedatives, and died three days later, Aug. 20, 1962.

He is remembered for his courage and faith despite the hardships that he endured. During one of his many times in prison, the priest wrote: “Just think how good and merciful the Lord is: He finds His flock in the woods, in the tundra, at midnight… I am thankful to Him with all my heart! Providence made sure that we, priest brethren, be sent where the believers are. Pastors follow their flock.”

In 1957, rumors were spreading that the 84 year-old bishop would be imprisoned again, to which Bishop Matulionis responded: “If I were passing by some bushes and someone suddenly jumped in front of me and said ‘Boo’, I might be frightened… But I’m not at all scared at the idea that they can arrest and imprison me.”

Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis will be beatified in the Cathedral Square in Vilnius June 25 by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

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Vatican City, Jun 13, 2017 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his message for the first World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis said that the suffering and broken bodies of the poor are where we encounter the body of Christ – and to know Christ we must know the poor.

“If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist,” he said in his message, released June 13.

“The Body of Christ, broken in the sacred liturgy, can be seen, through charity and sharing, in the faces and persons of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.”

“We may think of the poor simply as the beneficiaries of our occasional volunteer work, or of impromptu acts of generosity that appease our conscience,” he continued.

And these acts may be good for putting other’s needs more clearly before us, but what they should ultimately do is “lead to a true encounter with the poor and a sharing that becomes a way of life.”

On our paths to becoming true disciples of Christ, we find confirmation of our evangelical authenticity in the charity and sharing stemming from a real encounter, he said. “This way of life gives rise to joy and peace of soul, because we touch with our own hands the flesh of Christ.”

Pope Francis established the World Day of the Poor in his apostolic letter, “Misericordia et misera,” presented Nov. 20, 2016 at the end of the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.

To be celebrated on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time – this year falling on Nov. 19 – the idea came about, he explained, during the Jubilee for Socially Excluded People, highlighting in particular the homeless, which took place at the Vatican near the end of the Jubilee.

“At the conclusion of the Jubilee of Mercy, I wanted to offer the Church a World Day of the Poor, so that throughout the world Christian communities can become an ever greater sign of Christ’s charity for the least and those most in need,” the Pope explained in the message.

Pope Francis himself will celebrate Mass on Sunday, Nov. 19 in St. Peter’s Basilica, Archbishop Rino Fisichella told journalists at a press conference on the Pope’s message June 13.

Afterward, there will be a lunch for the poor, serving around 500, in the Pope Paul VI hall.

The theme for the World Day of the Poor, which includes a special logo depicting an open door, and one person welcoming another inside, is “Let us love, not with words but with deeds.”

Words alone aren’t enough, the Pope pointed out in his message, illustrating the point with the words of St. James in his epistle.

St. James writes, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body; what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead.”

Quoting St. John Chrysostom, as well, Francis continued, “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.”

“We are called, then, to draw near to the poor, to encounter them, to meet their gaze, to embrace them and to let them feel the warmth of love that breaks through their solitude.”

The Pope said he wanted to add this day to the already established ‘world days,’ because it adds an “exquisitely evangelical fullness, that is, Jesus’ preferential love for the poor.”

This day is meant to encourage all believers, regardless of religious affiliation, to react against a culture of discard and waste, and instead embrace a culture of encounter, which shares with the poor through “concrete signs of solidarity and fraternity.”

“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,” he lamented.

But though as Christians we have often failed in our duty to the poor, throughout history, the Holy Spirit has raised up holy men and women who have truly lived this out, setting an example for us all.

St. Francis, for example, is an excellent witness of how to serve the poor authentically, he explained. It was because the saint kept his eyes fixed firmly on Christ first that he was able to see Christ also in the poor and vulnerable, he said.

“If we want to help change history and promote real development, we need to hear the cry of the poor and commit ourselves to ending their marginalization,” he said. “At the same time, I ask the poor in our cities and our communities not to lose the sense of evangelical poverty that is part of their daily life.”

The poor are not just a chance to serve Christ, however, he said. They also offer us an opportunity to step outside of our places of comfort and certainty and acknowledge the counter-cultural view that poverty has a value even in itself.

“Let us never forget that, for Christ’s disciples, poverty is above all a call to follow Jesus in his own poverty.”

Poverty means having a humble heart and accepting our limitations and sinfulness. More than anything, poverty, like the poverty of spirit Christ speaks of in the beatitudes, is an “interior attitude” that doesn’t get caught up in thinking happiness is found in material goods and worldly success.

And prayer should be at the heart of all our concrete actions, he said. The Our Father is “the prayer of the poor,” because in it we ask God for our “daily bread,” expressing our entrustment to God for our most basic needs.

“When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he answered in the words with which the poor speak to our one Father, in whom all acknowledge themselves as brothers and sisters. The Our Father is a prayer said in the plural: the bread for which we ask is ‘ours,’ and that entails sharing, participation and joint responsibility,” Francis said.

The Pope asked that bishops, priests, deacons, and consecrated persons, as well as associations, movements and volunteers around the world help to make this day of the poor “a tradition that concretely contributes to evangelization in today’s world.”

“This new World Day, therefore, should become a powerful appeal to our consciences as believers, allowing us to grow in the conviction that sharing with the poor enables us to understand the deepest truth of the Gospel.”

“The poor are not a problem,” he concluded, “they are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practice in our lives the essence of the Gospel.”

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