Here and Now with Francis 5/19/16 (Christ, charity, salvation, neighbor, poverty, compassion, Lazarus)

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We must not wait for prodigious events to be converted, but we must open our heart to the Word of God, which calls us to love God and our neighbor. The Word of God can make an arid heart revive and heal it of its blindness.

From the audience
Jesus says that one day that rich man will die: the poor and the rich die, they have the same destiny, as do all of us; there are no exceptions to this. And then that man turns to Abraham, begging him with the appellation of “father” (vv. 24.27). He claims, therefore, to be his son, belonging to the People of God. Yet in life he showed no consideration to God; instead, he made himself the center of everything, shut-in in his world of luxury and waste. Excluding Lazarus, he did not take into account either the Lord or His Law. To ignore the poor is to scorn God! We must learn this well: to ignore the poor is to scorn God. [...] There is a particular point in the parable to be noted: the rich man does not have a name, but only the adjective “rich”; whereas the name of the poor man is repeated five times, and “Lazarus” means “God helps.” Lazarus, who lies in front of the door, is a living call to the rich man to remember God, but the rich man does not receive that call. Therefore, he will be condemned, not because of his riches, but for having been incapable of feeling compassion for Lazarus and helping him. [...]  No messenger and no message can substitute the poor we meet on the way, because in them Jesus Himself comes to encounter us: “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40), says Jesus. Thus, hidden in the reversal of fortunes that the parable describes is the mystery of our salvation, in which Christ joins poverty to mercy. [full text]

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