The Sayings: Poverty

Practical Wisdom (Part III)

Fr. Clement listened to me complain about all the families currently registered at the parish who were neither enrolled in the school, nor in any of our formation programs. I wasn’t done. I went on to express my concern about all the other families within the parish boundaries for which we had pastoral responsibility — including all the non-Catholics living nearby.

He listened.

Then, he said, “Jesus asks us to take care of the poor, not to end poverty. Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus say, ‘End poverty.’ Our job is to take care of the poor who come to us hungry.”

He was right.

Yes, a pastor, his collaborators, and parishioners bear a heavy pastoral responsibility. Yes, a parish is a geographical area, a region within which the pastor “is obliged to make provision so that the word of God is proclaimed in its entirety to those living in the parish . . . He is to make every effort, even with the collaboration of the Christian faithful, so that the message of the Gospel comes also to those who have ceased the practice of their religion or do not profess the truth faith” (Can 528 §1). But, we can’t get all humanistic about this, as if by our own devices we will solve the problem of non-engagement and non-belief down to its taproot. Our job isn’t to overpower non-belief and thereby end it wholesale. No. Our task is to announce the Gospel to those the Holy Spirit has prepared to hear it, those with a spiritual hunger — and to entrust all the rest to the God who alone can end poverty.