The year 2024, on the eve of the Ordinary Jubilee 2025, has been dedicated to prayer. Among the many prayers that we have raised throughout this time, today we give space to a special one, which constitutes the theme of the VIII World Day of the Poor:
The prayer of the poor goes up to God
Pope Francis
Since 2016, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time has been dedicated to the World Day of the Poor: an obligatory appointment for the entire ecclesial community, in which believers are encouraged to become aware of the presence and need of the poor. It is an excellent opportunity to promote projects that help people living in poverty, and to thank, recognize and support the volunteers who work on them.
Poverty has always been a central element in the charism of St. Joaquina, as Sister Yolanda Moreno explains in the CCV Notebook 9. In the text she tells how, on the day of the foundation of the congregation, St. Joaquina gave the last coin she had left to a poor man: an eloquent gesture that demonstrates how the foundress always embraced poverty.
In harmony with this deep connection of St. Joaquina with the poor, we join the ecclesial community with the following prayer:
Help us to change, Lord,
to look at things, at the world, at life
with your look and from your eyes.
Heal our blindnesses that prevent us from seeing
the pain and suffering of those who walk alongside,
of those who live in our world, under our same sun.
Shake our heart so that we learn to see
with eyes full of the Gospel and the Hope of the Kingdom.
The veil of our eyes is already drawn
so that, seeing, we can be moved by others,
and move us from the depths of our hearts,
to come and lend a hand, and life itself,
to those that are fallen and broken in the roadside ditches,
to the lepers of today,
to those whom this unjust society
has pulled to the side because they don’t count,
or are of no interest,
or are not profitable to the laws of the market.
Help us Lord
see,
and to change…
to see you
and to choose…
to use that wonderful look
that you left us to look at the world, reality, life:
the gaze of the Gospel,
to see with your eyes of God,
to feel with your compassionate heart,
to act under duress
and the committed fire of your Spirit,
to make it possible, already here on earth,
the new world we hope for,
the Kingdom of Heaven.
So be it.
Source: Caritas Valladolid
