The prayer of the poor rises to God, this is the theme of the 2024 World Day of the Poor.
It reminds us and encourages us to live and experience the essential union between prayer and the exercise of charity:
“If prayer does not translate into concrete action, it is vain; indeed, faith without works ‘is dead’ (James 2:26).
However, charity without prayer risks becoming philanthropy that soon runs dry. Without daily prayer lived with fidelity, our activity becomes empty, loses its deep soul, and reduces to mere activism.”
The ARCORES INTERNATIONAL NETWORK joins this VIII World Day of the Poor by giving VOICE, VISIBILITY, and PROMINENCE TO THE POOR.
We want to listen to the poor who come to us, who are in our environment, whom we accompany with our projects, to break “the glass wall that makes them invisible.” To let their messages reach us and hopefully move us to embrace, as the Pope reminds us in his message: the deadly “silence” of inattention, distraction, negligence, can be decisively stopped: “it breaks every time a brother in need is welcomed and embraced” (n. 7).
The poor brother then becomes seen, observed, recognized; becomes a catalyst of attraction for me; concrete effective and affective space is offered to him. That is why it is the welcoming embrace – that is, the one that detaches from itself and decides to care for the other – that breaks the glass wall that makes the poor transparent and invisible.
It is the caring embrace that makes the poor truly present in my horizon and becomes the only hammer capable of demolishing impassive strangeness and apathetic indifference.
At ARCORES, we also feel challenged by the Day’s theme:
The prayer of the poor rises to God.
So what should those of us who live in the world of opulence and well-being do? How can we ensure that our prayer too is received by God who preferentially loves the poor?
In the pastoral subsidy of the Dicastery for Evangelization[1], there is an answer worth considering:
Scripture offers us two paths: humility and gift.
The first makes man “small” in his most intimate core, that is, the heart. Not by chance, “the prayer of the humble (tapeinos) pierces the clouds” (Sir 35:17), precisely like that of the poor (ptōchos in Sir 21:5).
The second path is gift, that is, the generosity of those who possess but do not selfishly retain for themselves.
Sharing also makes the rich person’s heart “poor,” making it free and not possessed by things. Those who give generously in abundance transform “dishonest” wealth (Lk 16:9) into doubly “salvific” charity, for themselves and for those in need.
As Jesus explained in the parable of the shrewd manager (Lk 16:1-9) – a splendid reflection on the proper use of goods – wealth has the decisive power to lose or save us: therefore it must be subject to careful discernment.
The prayer of the poor rises to God thus points to a path not only for those in need but also for those who live in well-being.
It points to generous charity as an effective treatment that has the power to impoverish the heart of every person – rich or poor – thus opening to their prayer a highway that leads directly to God’s listening.
ARCORES invites you to participate in the Day through the initiative: #ListenToTheVoiceOfThePoor
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