Message for the IX World Day of the Poor (2025)

You, Lord, are my hope (cf Ps 71,5)

1. "You, Lord, are my hope" (Sal 71.5). These words come from a heart oppressed by serious difficulties: “You put me through many anguish” (v. 20), says the psalmist. Despite this, his soul is open and trusting, because he remains firm in faith, which recognizes God's support and proclaims it: "You are my Rock and my strength" (v. 3). From there comes the unfailing confidence that hope in Him does not disappoint: "I take refuge in you, Lord, may I never be ashamed!" (v. 1).

In the midst of life's trials, hope is encouraged by the firm and encouraging certainty of God's love, poured into hearts by the Holy Spirit. That is why it does not disappoint (cf. Rm 5,5), and Saint Paul can write to Timothy: "We labor and struggle because we have put our hope in the living God" (1Tm 4,10). The living God is, in fact, the "God of hope" (Rm 15:13), who, in Christ, through his death and resurrection, has become "our hope" (1Tm 1,1). We cannot forget that we have been saved in this hope, in which we need to remain rooted.

2. The poor can become a witness of a strong and reliable hope, precisely because they profess it in a precarious condition of life, marked by deprivation, fragility and marginalization. He does not trust in the securities of power or having; On the contrary, it suffers from them and is often a victim of them. Your hope can only rest elsewhere. Recognizing that God is our first and only hope, we too take the step of hopes ephemera to the esperanza durable. Faced with the desire to have God as a companion on the journey, riches are relativized, because the true treasure that we really need is discovered. The words with which the Lord Jesus exhorted his disciples resonate clearly and strongly: “Do not accumulate treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume them, and thieves pierce the walls and steal them. Instead, store up treasures in heaven, where there is no moth or rust to consume them, nor thieves to break in and steal" (Mt 6,19-20).

3. The most serious poverty is not knowing God. This is how he reminded us Pope Francisco when in the gospel of joy wrote: «The worst discrimination that the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care. The vast majority of the poor have a special openness to faith; "They need God and we cannot fail to offer them his friendship, his blessing, his Word, the celebration of the Sacraments and the proposal of a path of growth and maturation in faith" (n. 200). Here a fundamental and totally original awareness is manifested about how to find one's own treasure in God. In fact, the apostle John insists: «He who says, “I love God,” and does not love his brother, is a liar. "How can he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, love God whom he does not see?" (1 Jn 4,20).

It is a rule of faith and a secret of hope that all the goods of this earth, the material realities, the pleasures of the world, economic well-being, although important, are not enough to make the heart happy. Riches often deceive and lead to dramatic situations of poverty, the most serious of all is thinking that we do not need God and that we can lead our own lives independently of Him. The words of Saint Augustine come to mind: “Let God be all your presumption: feel yourself destitute of Him, and thus you will be filled with Him. Everything you possess without Him will cause you a greater emptiness." (Enarr. in Ps. 85,3).

4. Christian hope, to which the Word of God refers, is certainty on the path of life, because it does not depend on human strength but on the promise of God, who is always faithful. For this reason, Christians from the beginning wanted to identify hope with the symbol of the anchor, which gives stability and security. Christian hope is like an anchor that fixes our hearts in the promise of the Lord Jesus, who has saved us with his death and resurrection and who will return again among us. This hope continues to point to the “new heaven” and the “new earth” as the true horizon of life (2 P 3,13) where the existence of all creatures will find its authentic meaning, since our true homeland is in heaven (cf. Flp 3,20).

The city of God, consequently, commits us to the cities of men. These must, from now on, begin to resemble her. Hope, sustained by the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rm 5,5 transforms the human heart into fertile soil, where charity can sprout for the life of the world. The Tradition of the Church constantly reaffirms this circularity between the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. Hope is born from faith, which feeds and sustains it, on the foundation of charity, which is the mother of all virtues. And we need charity today, now. It is not a promise, but a reality that we look at with joy and responsibility: it commits us, directing our decisions towards the common good. He who lacks charity not only lacks faith and hope, but also takes away hope from his neighbor.

5. The biblical invitation to hope entails, therefore, the duty to assume coherent responsibilities in history, without delay. Charity, in fact, "represents the greatest social commandment" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1889). Poverty has structural causes that must be faced and eliminated. While this happens, we are all called to create new signs of hope that testify to Christian charity, as many saints of all times did. Hospitals and schools, for example, are institutions created to express welcome towards the weakest and most marginalized. Today they should already be part of the public policies of every country, but wars and inequalities often prevent this. Increasingly, the signs of hope today are family homes, communities for minors, listening and reception centers, soup kitchens for the poor, shelters, popular schools: so many signs, often hidden, to which we perhaps do not pay attention and, nevertheless, so important to shake us from indifference and motivate commitment in the different forms of volunteering.

The poor are not a distraction for the Church, but rather the most beloved brothers and sisters, because each one of them, with their existence, and even with their words and the wisdom they possess, provokes us to touch the truth of the Gospel with our hands. For this reason, the World Day of the Poor wants to remind our communities that the poor are at the center of all pastoral action. Not only of its charitable dimension, but also of what the Church celebrates and announces. God has assumed their poverty to enrich us through their voices, their stories, their faces. Every form of poverty, without excluding any, is a call to concretely live the Gospel and to offer effective signs of hope.

6. This is the invitation that comes to us from the Jubilee celebration. It is no coincidence that the World Day of the Poor be celebrated towards the end of this year of grace. When the Holy Door is closed, we will have to guard and transmit the divine gifts that have been poured into our hands throughout an entire year of prayer, conversion and testimony. The poor are not objects of our pastoral care, but rather creative subjects who encourage us to always find new ways to live the Gospel today. Faced with the succession of new waves of impoverishment, there is a risk of becoming accustomed and resigned. Every day we meet poor or impoverished people and, sometimes, it can happen that we ourselves are the ones who have the least, who lose what once seemed secure to us: a home, adequate food for the day, access to medical care, a good level of education and information, freedom of religion and expression.

By promoting the common good, our social responsibility is based on the creative gesture of God, who gives the goods of the earth to all; and like these, the fruits of man's labor must also be accessible in an equitable manner. Helping the poor is, in fact, a question of justice, rather than charity. As Saint Augustine observes: “You give bread to the hungry, but it would be better if no one were hungry and you had no one to give to. You dress the naked, but I wish everyone were clothed and there was no need to clothe anyone! (Homilies on the first letter of Saint John to the Parthians, VIII, 5).

I hope, therefore, that this Jubilee Year can promote the development of policies to combat old and new forms of poverty, as well as new initiatives to support and help the poorest of the poor. Work, education, housing and health are the conditions for a security that will never be achieved with weapons. I am happy for the initiatives that already exist and for the commitment that a large number of men and women of good will assume at the international level every day.

Let us trust in Mary Most Holy, Console of the afflicted, and with her let us sing a song of hope, making the words of the God bless you: «In Thee, O Lord, I have hoped, I shall not be confounded for ever "In you, Lord, I trusted, I will not be disappointed forever."

Vatican, June 13, 2025, memory of Saint Anthony of Padua, Patron of the Poor

LE ONE PP. XIV