people no longer see meaning in life or prospects for the future, how many have
lost hope! And how many are plunged into this destitution by unjust social conditions, by unemployment, which takes away their dignity as breadwinners, and by lack of equal
access to education and health care. In such cases, moral destitution can be considered impending suicide. This type of destitution, which also causes financial ruin, is invariably linked to the spiritual destitution which we experience when we turn
away from God and reject his love. If we think we don’t need God who reaches out to us though Christ, because we believe we can make do on our own, we are headed for a fall. God alone can truly
Subject: VISnews140204
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt <
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save and free us.</p>
<p>The Gospel is the real antidote to spiritual destitution: wherever we go, we
are called as Christians to proclaim the liberating news that forgiveness for sins committed is possible, that God is greater than our sinfulness, that he freely loves us at
all times and that we were made for communion and eternal life. The Lord asks us to be joyous heralds of this message of mercy and hope! It is thrilling to experience the joy of spreading this good news, sharing the treasure entrusted to us, consoling
broken hearts and offering hope to our brothers and sisters experiencing darkness. It means following and imitating Jesus, who sought out the poor and sinners as a shepherd lovingly seeks his lost sheep. In union with Jesus, we can courageously open up
new paths of evangelisation and human promotion.</p>
<p>Dear brothers and sisters, may this Lenten season find the whole Church ready to bear witness to all those who live in material, moral and spiritual destitution the Gospel message of the merciful love of God our Father, who is ready to embrace
everyone in Christ. We can so this to the extent that we imitate Christ who became poor and enriched us by his poverty. Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by
our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that costs nothing
and does not hurt.</p>
<p>May the Holy Spirit, through whom we are 'as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything', sustain us in our resolutions and increase our concern and responsibility for human destitution, so that we can become
merciful and act with mercy. In expressing this hope, I likewise pray that each
individual member of the faithful and every Church community will undertake a fruitful Lenten journey. I ask all of you to pray for me. May the Lord bless you and Our Lady
keep you safe”.</p>
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<p>PRESENTATION OF THE POPE'S MESSAGE FOR LENT 2014: “POVERTY AND DESTITUTION ARE DIFFERENT”</p>
<p>Vatican City, 4 February 2014 (VIS) – A press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office this morning to present the Holy Father's Message for
Lent 2014. The speakers were Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical
Council
“Cor Unum”, Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso and Msgr. Segundo Tejado Munoz, respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same dicastery, and the couple Davide Dotta and Anna Zumbo, missionaries in Haiti.</p>
<p>Before the presentation, the president of Cor Unum announced that he will visit Haiti again in March, in order to open a school financed on behalf of the
Pope as a sign of his closeness to the Haitian population, afflicted in 2010 by
an earthquake
which claimed more than 220,000 victims and affected a total of more than 3 million people.</p>
<p>Cardinal Sarah then went on to explain that the text of this year's Message from the Pope for Lent focuses on poverty, and Christ's poverty in particular; a concept very dear to Pope Francis, who since the beginning of his pontificate
has attempted
to emphasise this dimension of Christian life. “Certainly, the Christian vision of poverty is not the same as that which is commonly held. Too often we consider poverty from a sociological perspective, and it is understood as a lack of material
goods. Furthermore, the concept of a “poor Church for the poor” is often evoked as a sort of challenge to the Church, unfortunately also setting a
Church of the poor, a good Church … against a Church of preaching and truth, a Church
dedicated to prayer and to the defence of doctrine and morals”.</p> <p>“The first point of reference for a Christian to understand poverty is
indeed Christ, who made himself poor so that he could enrich us through his poverty. … The choice of poverty by Christ suggests to us that there exists a positive
dimension of poverty; this resonates throughout the Gospel, which proclaims that the poor are blessed. It is clear that in this dimension of poverty there is an aspect of despoliation and sacrifice. But this is possible because 'Jesus’ wealth lies
in his being the Son'. We cannot set our bourgeois consciences at rest, the Pope means, by denouncing material lack on the part of others or denouncing poverty as a system. … The Lenten Message we are presenting here today makes an important
distinction between poverty and destitution. It is not poverty, which is an evangelical attitude, but rather destitution that we wish to combat. The Holy Father, in his Message, lists three forms of destitution: material, moral
and spiritual. The first 'affects those living in conditions opposed to human dignity'. Faced with this form of destitution, the Church offers her service, 'her diakonia, in meeting these needs and binding these wounds which disfigure the face of
humanity'. Moral destitution consists in slavery to vice and sin. This form of destitution is also the cause of economic ruin, and is always linked to spiritual destitution, which occurs when we drift away from God and refuse His love”.</p>
<p>“I believe that this broad view of poverty, of destitution, and as a consequence the help that the Church may offer humanity, help us also to arrive
at a more complete vision of man and his needs, without falling in the trap of anthropological
reductionism which claims to resolve all the problems of the human person simply by resolving the problems of physical and material well-being”.</p>
<p>The president of Cor Unum recalled that in the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, Pope Francis writes that “Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care”.
He affirmed that this concept is fundamental “so as not to transform the Church into that non-governmental organisation that Pope Francis spoke about in
his first Holy Mass as Pontiff with the Cardinal Fathers. It would be a great pity if our gaze
upon those in need failed to acknowledge the spiritual poverty that often lurks
in the heart of man and pains him deeply, even though he may be in a condition of material comfort. … But if we wish to fully grasp Pope Francis' Message, we must not
consider it only in terms of its anthropological value. Man is by nature the son of God. This is his wealth! The great flaw of modern culture is that it has
imagined mankind capable of being happy without God, thus denying
that which is most profound in the human person: that is, his existential bond with the Father Who grants him life. … Thus, it is a crime to deprive the poor of the presence of God, just as it is a crime to consider man and allow man to live as
if God did not exist, to negate his being as a creation and therefore his fundamental belonging and affiliation with God. … Therefore, work in development cannot be simply that of creating new needs, but rather taking a serious look at what the
person truly is”.</p>
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