Life with the poor

Jesus gives his special attention to those people whose capacity to love is threatened. These are marginalized people and children whose basic capacity to love can be hurt or irreparably destroyed. People who are so endangered are the priority groups for pastoral commitment.

To Jesus no person is to be excluded from his community because of religious reasons, like ritual restrictions or because he or she is, in the eyes of people, “not fit to approach God.” Luke tells us that: “It is not the healthy who need the physician, but the sick“ (Lk 5:31).

Jesus uttered His severest condemnation against people who destroy in children their innate ability to love and to trust: “Whoever scandalizes one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him to be cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck” (Mt 18:6).

When his disciples asked Jesus “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” he answered that one has to become like a child. Who renounces greatness, strength and power “is the Greatest in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus places the children and the disciples on the same level. “Whoever welcomes one such child for my sake welcomes me (Mt 18:5).

Who, as a Christian, through a decision for non-violence, makes himself vulnerable, and like Francis “faces the Sultan defenseless” has the Gospel on his side. 

CCFMC, Lesson Unit 25, C 2.3