Pater Noster Fraternity at 5419 North 114th Street, Omaha, NE 68164 US - WHO ARE THE POOR

Dick Weithoner, SFO Justice & Peace Commissioner

All through scripture we find references to the poor. None of the actions taken by humanity since has eliminated the poor. As Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always." But we find that the Bible does not just refer to the poor when a lack of justice is being decried. The prophets in particular also mention forgetting the widow, the orphan, the leper, and the prisoner. So, we are called to give alms to the poor, visit the sick, and visit the prisoner. What was the significance of widows and orphans? In biblical times the extended family was important. If a husband died and left a widow and orphans the family came to the rescue just as they do now. But, sometimes a husband and wife moved far away. Sometimes the husband died and the widow did not have the means to move back home. Then, the community usually stepped in to help. But what made the prophets cry out was when Israel turned their back on God in good times. They decried Israel forgetting the poor, the widow, the orphan, the leper, and the prisoner. They denounced them for service to the creature instead of the creator. The fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile were some of the results. Jesus then came and planted the seeds of the New Covenant. He spoke of, "the least of his brethren" (Matt 25: 31 - 46). He spoke to us of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. He told us that when we help the least of his brethren we help him and described our reward. He told us when we turn our back on these (the least), we turn our back on him and resulting punishment. He planted the seed of his new church and it grew and evolved with history and advances in medicine, social welfare, etc. Who are the poor in our times? First consider how the Old Testament poor were powerless. Do people in poverty have power? Who else in present times are powerless? Minorities? Are women really treated equally in our society as a whole? Is the immigrant (the stranger)? Are all people regardless of race, sex, religion, national origin, or disabilities granted full participation in our society? In our world? Our action on behalf of justice in our world proceeds from the conviction that, despite the power of injustice and violence, life has been fundamentally changed by the entry of the Word made flesh into human history. Christian communities that commit themselves to solidarity with those suffering and to confrontation with those attitudes and ways of acting which institutionalize injustice, will themselves experience the power and presence of Christ. (And Economic Justice For All, NCCB, 1986) Next: What is Solidarity and seeing Christ in the poor.

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