If you haven’t yet, I strongly encourage you to read Pope Leo XIV’s first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te. The title translates to “I have loved you,” and in it the Holy Father reminds us that caring for the poor is central to Christian love and our own pursuit of holiness.
Caring for the poor, he writes, “is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.”
This encyclical moved me personally because it addresses an issue I have been involved with throughout my priesthood, especially during my years at Catholic Charities DC. Pope Leo challenges us to see care for those made vulnerable as critical in our journey toward eternity with God.
Pope Leo examines multiple ways the Scriptures call us to take care of those in need, from the Old Testament into the New. He includes several instances when Jesus teaches us this truth, including the parable of the Good Samaritan and in Matthew 25, where Jesus says we will be judged on whether we met Jesus in the poorest of the poor.
I know this is an uncomfortable issue. I suspect most of you reading this are blessed with places to live, food on the table, financially stable, and sources of income.
That’s true for most people in this country, but as Jesus told us, we will always have people experiencing poverty with us. The question for us is: Are we so driven to build up more for ourselves that we forget about those in need?
This was also the message of the Gospel on September 28, the Sunday before Pope Leo officially signed his encyclical. It was the parable of the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven. The rich man wasn’t overtly mean to Lazarus, the beggar. He simply didn’t notice him.
Pope Leo challenged me to think about my own resources. I am a very comfortable priest, and I need to make sure I am a good steward of my resources, sharing them to help take care of those who come my way.
At St. Bartholomew’s, where I live, several people regularly visit seeking assistance. One lives on the streets, and I am happy to say he recently got a voucher for housing in D.C. I also met another person years ago at Blessed Sacrament. He has multiple medical issues and regularly needs help, including necessary medicine. Another is someone with a daughter in college who is struggling to get by with various expenses.
There are others, too. I receive calls from people who know that I used to lead Catholic Charities DC and ask for help with newcomer support, tuition, mortgages and rents, food, utility bills, and more. I do my best to help. Serving others was an essential part of my life and faith journey at Catholic Charities DC, and it still is today.
Pope Leo reminds us that helping others should always be important. We must make sure people experiencing poverty are not forgotten.
I have always loved Jesus’ parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25, particularly verse 40, in which he tells us we actually meet him: “And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
Do we meet Jesus in those experiencing hardships? Do we give others a chance to introduce Jesus to us by helping them? Have I come to know Jesus better through service, kindness, and charity?
I again encourage you to read the encyclical and take to heart Pope Leo’s words. They are profound in what they teach us and ask of us. Cardinal McElroy captured the encyclical’s essence beautifully when he said that Pope Leo shows how central the poor are to the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel, and how the saints have helped us understand “that love for God is not possible for the Christian without love for the poor.”
We care for families and individuals facing financial hardships because we want to be kind. We care because they are our brothers and sisters created in God’s image. We care because Jesus commanded us to.
And we care because it is good for our souls. We meet Jesus personally in those underserved and disenfranchised among us.
(Msgr. John Enzler serves as the mission advocate of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and is a chaplain at his alma mater, St. John’s College High School in Washington. He writes the Faith in Action column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers and websites.)
