In
a news item today January 12, 2015, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that the concern
for the poor is the touchstone of the Christian faith. Indeed Christ himself
proclaimed his mission as that of preaching the gospel to the poor, that he was
sent to heal the brokenhearted, preach deliverance to the captives, recovering
sight to the blind and setting at liberty them that are bruised. We who call
ourselves Christians must have too the same mission, to whom, in the day of
judgment, God will ask us, when I was hungry, did you give me food to eat;
thirsty water to drink; naked and you clothe me.This however, we often
understand to be simply almsgiving. While the poor, the victims of typhoon
Yolanda, whom Pope Francis will meet when he arrives int Philippines, need
immediate help, they will remain poor, hungry and naked, unless we Christians
address the root causes of their hunger and poverty, the unjust social
structures which perpetuate their dehumanizing conditions. If we Christians do
not work for justice in our country, our almsgiving as exemplified by our
politicians, will just be an instrument to perpetuate their unjust and
dehumanizing condition, an opiate for them to forget their true condition, a
means to cover their exploitation. Most sadly, we and our church leaders have
utterly failed in this respect.
While Pope Francis challenges us to
reform the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the
poor, he qualifies it by saying that it first requires a conversion of mind and
heart. The Christian then in his fight against injustice should not lose sight
of the fact that man's misery caused by unjust social structures can be rooted
further in the evil heart of man or sin. A call then to work for justice, to
change the unjust social structures is a call for a change in the very
heart of man; a call to conversion. Genuine conversion which to the Christian
can only be brought about through Christ Jesus, who came to the world to save
us from sin and in whose power we should put our trust on, means however that
it must eventually affect our relations with others: not only that we live a
life of service to others but that we hold firmly to our Christian faith and
refuse to cooperate with injustice, by working for the transformation of
society and its unjust social structures. Sadly after centuries of being a
Christian nation, we Christians and our church and political leaders who calla
themselves Christians have utterly failed, which is revealing of the kind of
faith that we claim to hold.
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