Readings (Year C):
Sirach 35:12 – 14, 16 – 18
Psalm 34:2 – 3, 17 – 18, 19, 23
2 Timothy 4:6 – 8; 16 – 18
Luke 18:9 – 14
Reflection: Will we hear the cry of the poor?
Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV issued his first apostolic exhortation titled Dilexi Te “On Love for the Poor.” This magisterial text carries forward the spirit of Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, whose commitment to the poor was made manifest in his preaching, teaching, and actions. Like Pope Francis, Pope Leo is inspired by the life and legacy of St. Francis of Assisi whose embrace of evangelical poverty was both a protest against the injustice of material poverty and a sign of solidarity with those people whom society had overlooked, forgotten, or simply pushed to the margins and placed out of sight.
Pope Leo reminds us that, “The condition of the poor is a cry that, throughout human history, constantly challenges our lives, societies, political and economic systems, and, not least, the Church. On the wounded faces of the poor, we see the suffering of the innocent and, therefore, the suffering of Christ himself” (DT 9). Reiterating the church’s teaching on the “option for the poor,” the pope points our attention to the whole of sacred scripture that affirms God’s closeness to those who suffer and who calls the comfortable and powerful to conversion for the sake of their neighbors. He writes: “From the beginning of Scripture, God’s love is vividly demonstrated by his protection of the weak and the poor, to the extent that he can be said to have a particular fondness for them. ‘God’s heart has a special place for the poor…The entire history of our redemption is marked by the presence of the poor’” (DT 17).
This Sunday’s readings bear witness to this truth of God’s distinctive care and concern for the poor. The wisdom of Ben Sira in our first reading boldly proclaims that “The Lord is a God of justice” and, although God loves all without favorites, God “hears the cry of the oppressed.” The psalmist likewise announces that “The Lord hears the cry of the poor” and that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.”
Today, there are many who are oppressed, brokenhearted, and crushed. In an age of rampant economic inequality when a handful of people individually possess billions of dollars while millions struggle to make ends meet and provide for their families, the poor cry out to God and neighbor. Likewise, when our refugee and migrant siblings fleeing persecution, poverty, and environmental devastation are oppressed by our nation’s political policies and dehumanizing treatment at our borders and also in our cities, the poor cry out to God and neighbor. And when those who do not have hardened hearts, who risk the vulnerability of compassion and the openness to mourn, are brokenhearted in the face of such injustice and pain, the poor cry out to God and neighbor.
We know from our readings today that God hears the cries of the poor and draws close to them. But the question remains, for those of us whom God has called to conversion, away from the idolatry of wealth and comfort to the solidarity of Christian discipleship: will we also hear the cries of the poor? And will we respond, when we do?
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