Last month, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for people experiencing homelessness, including residents of a shelter for families. His homily reflected upon the daily Gospel of Luke 12:49-53, where Jesus says, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” Pope Leo XIV reflected on “not the fire of weapons, nor the fire of words that burn others down. No. But the fire of love – a love that stoops to serve, that responds to indifference with care and to arrogance with gentleness; the fire of goodness….freely renews the world.”
This burning fire of love is founded and rooted in a relationship with Christ. From the moment of our conception, each of us receives the gift of innate dignity and worth. Inherently, this dignity is not diminished or tarnished, yet we can choose to uphold the dignity of another or dismiss it by our actions, attitudes or thoughts. Every individual and parish is invited to enter into the stooped posture of service to encounter, to “let us welcome Him in the poor – and then we will make peace even with our own poverty, the kind we fear and deny when we seek comfort and security at all costs,” Pope Leo XIV.
Pray: God of Justice, open our eyes to see you in the face of the poor. Open our ears to hear you in the cries of the exploited. Open our mouths to defend you in the public squares as well as in private deeds. Remind us that what we do to the least ones, we do to you. Amen. (Prayer Credit: USCCB)
Listen: Ascension Presents – What is the Value of a Human Life?
Christ in the City – Poverty of Loneliness
