On World Day of the Poor, look around

In the service of the poor, there is no room for competition,” says Pope Francis in his letter for World Day of the Poor.

You may think there’s some irony in the Pope’s statement as you scan The B.C. Catholic this week.

On Pages 2 and 3, we feature some of the Catholic ministries touching lives in the Downtown Eastside. To the casual observer it could look quite competitive as hundreds of agencies, many of them religious, try to make life more bearable for the poor.

In reality, the work being done in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood is an example of what Pope Francis calls “our cooperation with other initiatives inspired not by faith but by human solidarity, (making) it possible for us to provide help that otherwise we would have been unable to offer.”

The Pope says in the face of so much poverty “our capacity for action is limited, weak and insufficient,” leading us to “reach out to others so that, through mutual cooperation, we can attain our goals all the more effectively.”

In this edition you’ll also find a three-page feature on 26 men and women who are receiving Archdiocese of Vancouver Stewardship Awards. Although awards are usually thought of in a competitive sense, these individuals are not contestants, but unsung heroes, as we refer to them. Many of them are as low-profile as you can get, opening up the church every morning, washing altar cloths, bringing Communion to the sick, singing in the choir, serving at pancake breakfasts, teaching PREP, and fundraising for parish projects.

Often inconspicuous and asking for nothing in return, they provide generous service that helps the Church while living out the archdiocesan Priorities and Goals: Making Every Sunday Matter, Getting Closer to Jesus, Strengthening Marriages and Families, and Developing Parish Leadership and Support.

As I read the Pope’s letter, which acknowledges “countless initiatives are undertaken every day by the Christian community in order to offer closeness and a helping hand in the face of the many forms of poverty all around us,” my thoughts go to the Downtown Eastside ministries and our unsung heroes.

Between them, they show us poverty comes in many forms, and while those in the Downtown Eastside are the most visible, the needy and disadvantaged are all around us. They are in the homeless camps in communities across the Lower Mainland. They are dying from addiction in their homes in the suburbs. They are desperately looking for affordable housing, or struggling with mental illness, pain, and loneliness. They are seeking Jesus in their lives and often don’t know it.

It’s hard to reconcile all the good work being done by organizations and individuals with the suffering that takes place in the world. Which is why on this World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis calls us to “make a serious examination of conscience, to see if we are truly capable of hearing the cry of the poor.”

This day is intended to be “a small answer that the Church throughout the world gives to the poor of every kind and in every land, lest they think that their cry has gone unheard. It may well be like a drop of water in the desert of poverty, yet it can serve as a sign of sharing with those in need, and enable them to sense the active presence of a brother or a sister.” 

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