Money doesn’t make you rich – loving others does, Pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNA/EWTN News) — Pope Francis’ pastoral heart came out in his Lenten message this year, focusing in what could be a lengthy homily on the importance of recognizing others as a gift, with an in-depth reflection on the Word of God.
“A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door of the rich is not a nuisance, but summons to conversion and to change,” the Pope said in this year’s Lenten message.
“Each person is a gift, whether it be our neighbor or an anonymous pauper,” he said, adding that Lent “is a favorable season for opening the doors to all those in need and recognizing in them the face of Christ.”
Released Feb. 7, the Pope’s message is titled “The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift,” and centers on the passage in the Gospel of Luke recounting the relation between the poor man Lazarus and the rich man who rejects him, a favorite episode to which he often returns.
In the message, Francis said Lent is a key time to vamp up our spiritual life through the Church’s traditional practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. However, “at the basis of everything is the Word of God,” he said, and offered an in-depth reflection on the parable.
Francis noted how the parable begins by presenting the two main characters, with the poor man described in more detail than the rich man. Lazarus is depicted as lying in front of the rich man’s door eating the crumbs that fall from his table, and with dogs coming to lick the sores that cover his body.
“The picture is one of great misery; it portrays a man disgraced and pitiful,” the Pope said, noting the contrast between the image of the poor man provided and his name, Lazarus, which means “God helps,” indicating a promise.
Although Lazarus is invisible to the rich man, “we see and know him as someone familiar. He becomes a face, and as such, a gift, priceless treasure, a human being whom God loves and cares for, despite his concrete condition as an outcast,” Francis said.
Lazarus therefore teaches us that “other persons are a gift,” he said, adding that good relationships among people consist of recognizing each other’s value.
By setting the scene as it does, the parable first invites us to open our hearts to others and to recognize them as a gift, “whether it be our neighbor or an anonymous pauper,” he said, adding that each life we encounter “is a gift deserving acceptance, respect and love.”
The word of God helps us “to open our eyes to welcome and love life, especially when it is weak and vulnerable,” he said, but stressed that in order to do this, “we have to take seriously what the Gospel tells us about the rich man.”
Francis then turned to the image of the rich man himself, who, unlike Lazarus, doesn’t have a name, and is described as wearing extravagant and expensive robes, flaunting his wealth in a “clearly ostentatious” way.
Turning to St. Paul’s declaration in his First Letter to Timothy that “the love of money is the root of all evil,” the Pope noted that money is the primary source of envy, conflict, and suspicion.