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\u00a0The Pontiff\u2019s reflection began from the passage of the Second Letter to the Corinthians (8:1-9), in which St Paul \u201cis organizing, in the Church of Corinth, a collection for the Church of Jerusalem, which is experiencing difficult times of poverty\u201d. To prevent the collection from being done in a wrongful way, the Apostle offers \u201cseveral considerations\u201d, a sort of \u201ctheology of poverty\u201d. These clarifications were necessary because, Francis explained, \u201cpoverty\u201d is a word \u201cwhich always embarrasses\u201d. Indeed, how often have we heard: \u201cThis priest talks too much about poverty, this bishop speaks of poverty, this Christian, this nun speak of poverty…. They are rather communistic, no?\u201d. But instead, the Pope underscored, \u201cpoverty is at the very heart of the Gospel\u201d, such that \u201cif we were to remove poverty from the Gospel, nothing would be understood of Jesus\u2019 message \u201d.<\/p>\n
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Thus, St Paul explains the catechesis \u201con charity and on poverty and on wealth\u201d, beginning with an example taken from the experience of the Church of Macedonia. There, \u201cin a severe test of affliction \u2014 for they suffered greatly through persecutions \u2014 their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality on their part\u201d. In other words, \u201cin giving, in enduring afflictions, they were enriched, they became joyous\u201d. And, Francis added, it is found in one of the Beatitudes: \u201cBlessed are you when they insult you, when they persecute you …\u201d.<\/p>\n
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After giving this example, Paul turns back to the Church of Corinth: \u201cas you are rich, think of them, of the Church of Jerusalem\u201d. But, the Pope asked, of which richness is Paul speaking? The answer immediately follows in the text: \u201cyou excel in everything: in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness\u201d, and in the love that we taught you. This is followed by an exhortation: \u201cNow, as you excel, see that you excel in this gracious work also\u201d. In other words, Francis explained, do in order that your \u201cgreat wealth \u2014 zeal, charity, the Word of God, the knowledge of God \u2014 reaches the pockets\u201d. Because, he added, \u201cwhen the faith doesn\u2019t reach the pockets, it is not a genuine faith\u201d; and this is \u201ca golden rule\u201d to remember.<\/p>\n
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Thus, from the Pauline passage emerges a \u201cjuxtaposition between wealth and poverty. The Church of Jerusalem is poor, is in economic difficulty, but is rich because it has the treasure of the Gospel message\u201d. And it is \u201cthis poor Church of Jerusalem\u201d, which enriched the Church of Corinth \u201cwith the Gospel message: they gave her the treasure of the Gospel\u201d. Those who are economically rich are poor in reality, \u201cwithout the Gospel message\u201d. There is, said the Pontiff, \u201ca mutual exchange\u201d and thus, \u201cfrom poverty comes wealth\u201d.<\/p>\n
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It is at this point, the Pope explained, that \u201cPaul, with his thoughts, reaches the bedrock of what we can call \u2018the theology of poverty\u2019 and why poverty is at the heart of the Gospel\u201d. The Epistle reads: \u201cFor you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich\u201d. Thus, \u201cit was the very Word of God made flesh, the Word of God in this condescendence, in this humbling himself, in this impoverishing himself, for us, to make us rich in the gifts of salvation, of the word, of grace\u201d. This \u201cis the very core of the theology of poverty\u201d, which, after all, is seen again in the first Beatitude: \u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit\u201d. Francis emphasized: \u201cbeing poor is allowing yourself to be enriched by the poverty of Christ and not wanting a wealth of other riches which are not those of Christ, it is doing what Christ did\u201d. It is not only becoming poor, but is going \u201ceven a step further\u201d, because, he said, \u201cthe poor enrich me\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Turning to the concrete nature of everyday life, the Pope explained that \u201cwhen we give help to the poor, we do not do beneficent acts in a Christian way\u201d. This is a \u201cgood\u201d act, a \u201chuman\u201d act, but \u201cthis is not the Christian poverty that Paul wants, that Paul preaches\u201d. Because Christian poverty means \u201cthat I give of my own and not from excess\u201d, even from my basic necessities, \u201cto the poor, for I know that they enrich me\u201d. And why do the poor enrich me? \u201cBecause Jesus said that he himself is in the poor\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Paul alludes to the same concept when he writes: \u201cOur Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich\u201d. This happens \u201ceach time I divest myself of something, but not only of the excess, to give to a poor person, to a poor community, to so many poor people who lack everything\u201d, because \u201cthe poor enrich me\u201d insomuch as \u201cit is Jesus who acts in him\u201d.<\/p>\n
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This is because, Francis concluded, poverty \u201cis not an ideology\u201d. Poverty \u201cis at the heart of the Gospel\u201d. In the \u201ctheology of poverty\u201d we find \u201cthe mystery of Christ who lowered himself, humbled himself, impoverished himself, to enrich us\u201d. Thus it is understood \u201cwhy the first of the Beatitudes is: \u2018Blessed are the poor in spirit\u2019\u201d. And \u201cbeing poor in spirit\u201d, the Pontiff continued, means \u201cgoing on this path of the Lord\u201d, who \u201cso humbled himself\u201d as to become \u201cbread for us\u201d in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Jesus \u201ccontinuously lowers himself in the history of the Church, in the memorial of his humiliation, in the memorial of his poverty, and of this \u2018bread\u2019, he enriches us\u201d.<\/p>\n
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The Pope then prayed: \u201cThat the Lord enable us to understand the path of Christian poverty and the attitude that we must have when we help the poor\u201d.<\/p>\n
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The focus of Pope Francis\u2019 homily during Mass at Santa Marta on Tuesday, 16 June, was the \u201ctheology of poverty\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,36,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2803,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions\/2803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}