Lent
2003
Reflection
The Faces of the Poor
Second Sunday of Lent
Scripture
Readings
Genesis 22:1-2, 10-13, 15-18
Romans 8:31b-34
Mark
9:2-10
By PAULO EVARISTO ARNS
One summer day many years ago I left Fordham University in New
York and went with friends on a walking tour of historic Harlem. We walked by a
Baptist church and saw on its front door a large felt banner with writing on
it. I stopped to read it and was surprised to see that it was a quote from my
dear friend and fellow archbishop, Helder Câmara. It said: “Be
careful of the way you live, it is the only gospel most people will ever
read!”
If we were to choose one name from all the Brazilians who have
dedicated themselves to the defense of the poor, certainly Helder Câmara
would be elected. Immediately following the close of the Second Vatican
Council, Archbishop Câmara was one of the guiding lights in preparing for
the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) meeting in Medellín,
Colombia. Now, after 35 years, I think that the moment has come to ask
ourselves if we have really embraced the teaching of Medellín and its
preferential option for the poor.
If you think we can believe
statistics, they tell us that there are more homeless people on the streets of
New York City than in the city of São Paulo! I do not want to enter into
a competition with New Yorkers, but I would like to emphasize that poverty is
universal. Poor countries exist, and in rich countries there are gray zones of
poverty and need.
In Medellín, Pope Paul VI said to the campesinos: “Now
you are listening to us in silence, but we hear the shout that arises from your
suffering.” During this Lenten season, I would like us to ask ourselves if
we can still hear clearly this cry that is born of deep economic injustice.
The liturgical readings for this Sunday begin with the dramatic
reading of the preparations for the death of Abraham’s only son, Isaac.
The reading is chosen in Lent to prepare us for the death of Jesus, his
Father’s beloved Son.
The reading in Genesis originally was used to teach God’s
people that our God is not a God of death, but of life. St. John even says that
God gives us an abundance of life. God loves the poor, but hates misery. Forty
million people, just in Brazil, do not have enough to eat. How many people do
the Catholic Worker houses and other hospitality houses and soup kitchens feed
in the United States? Does it come to millions?
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that when we have more food than we need,
it no longer belongs to us, but to the hungry. It is not a case of charity, but
of justice. During Lent, we should occasionally open our refrigerators and
meditate on how much in them is really ours, and how much, in justice, belongs
to the hungry.
Psalm 116 echoes the
narrative in Genesis. The poor love God because when they cry out, he turns his
ear and hears their voice. Those who know the “anguish of the grave”
and are overcome by sorrow know that God is full of compassion and helps those
in great need.
St. Paul tells us in the Letter to the Romans, chapter 12, that
God practices his unfailing mercy through us! Some of us are called to
prophecy, others to works of mercy, and still others to be the visible love of
God to the world’s poor.
Jesus’ Transfiguration is a narrative of hope. He, who was
rich in his divinity, made himself poor to save us on the cross. But God, from
the beginning, promised: “The Just will never die!” Jesus is raised
from the dead to the fullness of life. The Transfiguration is the foretaste of
the Resurrection.
Medellín was a Transfiguration. It was a message of hope to
the poor of the world and to all who believe that God is a Father to us all.
The final document states: “We call to all persons of good will that they
cooperate in truth, justice, love and liberty, in this transforming labor of
our peoples, the dawn of a new era.
“We remind other peoples who have overcome the obstacles we
encounter today that peace is based on respect for international justice,
justice which has its own foundation and expression in the recognition of the
political, economic and cultural autonomy of our peoples.”
Archbishop Helder
Câmara presents us with another aspect of our commitment to justice for
the poor. He reminds us that Jesus himself prayed to God in thanksgiving that
the Father has revealed himself to the little ones of the world and not to the
rich, the powerful or the wise in the ways of the world.
When we give ourselves to the poor, the poor give God to us.
Archbishop Câmara sees another miracle: If we decide to dedicate
ourselves to the poor in poor countries and in rich countries, if the poor
become our priority, then we will have to bid farewell to certain lifestyles,
to certain comforts and to prestige and “triumphalism.” We will have
been converted by the poor!
There are always moments of greater hope for justice in the world.
Last year in Brazil we elected a new president, Luís Inácio Lula
da Silva. He was born in Brazil’s poorest northeastern region and came as
a migrant to São Paulo when he was still a child. He became a
steelworker and our most influential labor leader.
When he was elected, our stock market fell; our money lost its
buying power in relation to the dollar. The neoliberal economists of the world
were in despair. Who will this labor leader choose for financial minister? Who
will head the federal bank?
Then President-elect da Silva called a meeting of labor leaders,
bankers, industrialists and humanitarian leaders of nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs). He announced that he was not going to invite them to talk
about markets or finances. He wanted them to collaborate with him in a campaign
against hunger. By the end of his four-year term he wants every Brazilian to
have three meals a day.
Economic policy is very
important. But, for once in our postmodern world, we had the joy of hearing a
national leader say that our people are more important than the value of the
dollar.
I would like to end this reflection with a paragraph from the
final document of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference Meeting in
Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. Our people were so inspired by these words that they
put them to music and we sing this song in church.
“We speak of a situation of extreme poverty in our
countries. We must remember, however, that this poverty has a very concrete
face:
- the faces of the Indigenous peoples and the Afro-Americans
who live in inhuman situations, the poorest of the poor;
- the faces of the campesinos who, in our continent, have no
land of their own and are exploited by landowners;
- the faces of the factory workers who are badly paid and face
difficulties to organize their unions;
- the faces of the outcasts in our large urban centers. They
live in the midst of wealth and have nothing of their own;
- the faces of the unemployed who have lost their jobs because
of repeated economic crises and unjust models of economic development;
- the faces of our youth who are frustrated and lost for lack
of training and orientation;
- the faces of our children, weakened by poverty even before
they are born, suffering from physical and mental deficiencies;
- the faces of the aged, more and more numerous, abandoned by a
society that only values those who produce wealth.”
These faces of the poor in the Americas call out for a
Transfiguration of our unjust economic and social structures.
Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns is the retired archbishop of
São Paulo, Brazil.
National Catholic Reporter, March 7,
2003
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