On the fourth of this month, Pope Leo XIV gave to the Universal Church the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You) which encourages us to grow in concrete acts of love for the poor. While large portions of this exhortation, deal with those who suffer material poverty, Pope Leo also adds a useful caution, reminding us in §9 that “there are many forms of poverty,” including “moral and spiritual poverty.” Later, at § 87, he exhorts that in addition to reaching out to those suffering material impoverishment, we should reach out: “above all, [to] those without hope of a better future.”
This caution is well made, because all too often, misguided especially by Marxian ideologies, we assume that material poverty is the only poverty that matters, and that the materially rich may be ignored, do not need our ministerial actions, and worse, are evil.
Nothing could be further from the message in the first reading today:
The LORD is a God of justice,
who knows no favorites.
Though not unduly partial toward the weak,
yet he hears the cry of the oppressed.
The God of justice, has no favourites. He opens His heart and His ears above all to the cries of the oppressed, be they the orphan or widow, as we hear in the first reading, or the poor, the brokenhearted and the crushed as we sang in the psalm.
Pope Leo’s caution in Dilexi Te is useful because the Christian understanding of the poor does not unduly fetishize the poor. It does not see them as innocents, as fashionable post-colonial and other leftist ideologies do, precisely because they are poor! As terribly as poverty is, and as much as it demands the action of selfless Christian charity, the poor are not simply those who are materially poor. Rather, the Faith recognizes as poor persons who, humble themselves like Our Lord, and accuse themselves of their sins.
The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds
This is precisely the message from the Gospel parable today. We are introduced to two characters, the self-righteous Pharisee, and the penitent tax-collector. The Pharisee is convinced of having gathered the good graces of God, because he has fulfilled the letter of the law. But alas! He is filled with pride and arrogance, believing himself superior, particularly to the tax-collector. Our Lord, however, points out that it is precisely the tax-collector’s penitence, his acknowledgement of his sins, that makes him poor, and therefore deserving of the rich mercy of God.
In his discussion in Angels and Demons (no, not that book!!) of the angels’ fall from heaven, the Dominican Serge-Thomas Bonino points to their sin of pride. Drawing on St. Thomas Aquinas’ insights, he points out that pride is the disordered love of our own excellence; the love of the self, to the disregard, and contempt even, of the good of others (p. 203). This is not dissimilar to those people who come to the sacrament of confession, confident that they are good, and pure, and use the sacrament to confess the sins of others! Woe to them.
One can clearly see, that in the parable today, Our Lord was cautioning us against the sin of pride, which prevented the Pharisee from recognizing the goodness that the tax collector’s penitence represented. It is when we throw ourselves as the mercy of Our Lord, relying not on our good works, but on His mercy, recognizing our sins, no matter our good works, that we are truly poor in the eyes of Our Lord. For remember, his poverty lay, not merely in the humble economic circumstances into which He was born, but rather in the fact that He, who knew no sin, was made sin, so that we may become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).
This is not to suggest that the poor are inappropriately proud – though if they do not cry out to the Lord in their distress, but rely solely on their own strength, they might well be! This caution is also directed against those who perform acts of charity. As someone who has worked in what is known as the developmental sector, I can testify that there can sometimes set in a sense of smug satisfaction, arrogance even, among those who work in the sector. After our acts of charity, we come to believe that we are owed something, sometimes perversely expecting this from the very people we assist! If this be the case, we are not far from embodying the Pharisee who Our Lord is so clear does not find righteousness with God.
My dear brothers and sisters, the Lord of justice has no favourites, though he is especially attentive to the voice of the distressed. It is when we cry out to Him, recognizing the limits of our capacities that we are truly poor. It is when we, like the apostle Paul, pour ourselves out like libations in acts of Christian charity, and are attacked for this by the powers and principalities of this world that we become one with the poor and win for ourselves the crown of righteousness.
(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the anticipated Sunday Mass on 25 October 2025 at the Cathedral parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Old Goa.)
(Image reference: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jan Luyken, 1700, Rijksmuseum.)
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