GOD ON THE MARGINS: POVERTY AND MERCY

GOD ON THE MARGINS

It is only with childlike trust and confidence in God that our eyes can be opened to his
presence in his little ones. Don Bosco understood this lesson well. The little ones opened his
eyes to God’s presence among them. Through living Jesus, he embodied God’s presence
among the “the lost ones” of his time, especially poor and abandoned young people. Long
before the Second Vatican Council, Don Bosco was making us aware of this evangelical truth
that God still suffers and is present in the poor, the young who are homeless and in need.
Pope John XXIII, in preparation for the Second Vatican Council, presented unequivocally,
‘the Church as Church of all, especially of the poor.’ i His successor, Pope Paul VI, takes up
the theme of the presence of God in the poor, inviting the Church to reflect more deeply on
it. He writes: ‘the real presence of Christ, which is hidden in the bread and wine, is visibly
manifested in his social presence in the poor who are the sign and image of his ongoing
passion in the world. It is to be strongly held that there is a relationship between the real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist and his social presence in the poor; the poor are the
sacrament of Christ.’ii Jesus’ identification with the poor, ‘whatever you do the least of my
brothers or sisters you do to me’ is in totally harmony with the Jewish vision of God’s
presence in the poor that preceded his mission. We learn in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Whoever
oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, But he who is generous to the needy honours him.’
(Prv.14:31) This idea that mistreatment of the poor is an insult to God is repeated in slightly
different words in the next chapter: “Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker” (17:5). the
theme is expanded in a variety of ways by several other proverbs, culminating in this
particularly insightful quotation: ‘Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He
will repay him for his deeds.’ (Prv.19:17) If we draw close to God, then, we draw close to
him in the poor. The Judaic-Christian view of humanity calls us to reverence God in the poor
and to share the bountiful goodness of God with those in need.

The poor are to be found on the margins. A triptych of parables, the lost sheep (Lk.15L3-7),
the lost coin (Lk.15:8-10) and the lost son (Lk.15:11-32) reinforce the message that God
seeks those who are poor, on the margins, lost. Each parable illumines a different aspect of
God’s love. The Shepherd who ‘goes after the lost sheep until he finds it’ and then, ‘places it
on his shoulders.’ Or the feminine face of God in the woman sweeping out the house until
she finds the lost coin and then throws a party in celebration. However, it is the parable of
the prodigal son that helps us to understand best, not only God searching for the lost, but
where God is to be found. God pursues us like the Good Shepherd (Lk.15:3) but at the same
time, he waits for us like the prodigal Father (Lk.15:20)

GOD ON THE OUTSIDE

If we focus on the Father in this parable, we may well ask the question: Where is the father
to be found? Both the sons are outside. The Father runs out towards the younger son who
has done wrong; He also comes out to persuade his older son to let go of his resentment
and join in the celebrations. God is always found outside, therefore, not in the place we
expect. He is always outside because he is going after the person who is outside: the person
who is excluded, marginalized, needs mercy and forgiveness. ‘As always with Jesus’
parables, the sting is in the tail: the father is found “outside” with his son in the darkness of
his sin and failure, seeking a lost child, promising all that he has. Jesus tells his audience that
they are looking for God in the wrong places! The Father is to be found “outside” seeking his
lost child.’iii
Neither son gains entry into the feast by right, it is at the invitation of the Father and is pure
gift. This explains why in the previous chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we find the parable of the
wedding feast, where the rich guests refuse the invitation and offer different excuses. It is
“the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Lk.14:21) who take their place. As long as
both sons are rich they are in a sense lost. The younger son squandered what the Father
had given him and the older son doesn’t understand his Father’s words that “everything I
have is yours my son”. The older son “could not see the unearned gift of living in his
Father’s presence, just as the younger son had been unable to see the undeserved gift that
was his inheritance from the Father” (Michael Marsch, Healing Through the Sacraments).
The younger brother has been reduced to poverty and it is only then that he can appreciate
that what his Father is offering is gift, he has no claim to it. The older son has not made that
journey yet, and so believing himself ‘rich’, he wants to claim what is his due, and has yet to
discover that it can only be received as gift. It is only when we have descended into our own
poverty, our own weakness that we discover the gift of God’s love that is already awaiting
us.

This theme of the “outsider” where God is to be present challenges our preconceived
notions of where God is to be found. God is always going in search of us, and God’s heart
expands with delight when we allow ourselves to be found by Him. Like the shepherd, God
places us on his shoulders; like the woman, God throws a party; Like the Father, God holds
us in his embrace. When we do wrong, God goes in search of us; when we respond, we give
God delight. Not only is God to be found on the “outside” but he is intent on bringing us
inside: ‘In my Father’s house there are many rooms.’(Jn.14:2) A recurring theme in the
ministry of Jesus is not only physical healing but a restoring of the person into the life of the
community. This is evident in the woman with the bleeding complaint, the healing of lepers,
and others who were regarded as ritually unclean and ostracized from the community. Not
only are they restored to health, but they are restored to the life of the community, this
reconciliation with the community and God is an important aspect of salvation.

Rooted in tradition, we need, at the same time, to recognise, and respond to, the new forms
of poverty that are emerging. In The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third
Millennium, the ‘new poor’ are defined as:
those who have lost all sense of meaning in life and lack any type of inspiring ideal,
those to whom no values are proposed and who do not know the beauty of faith,
who come from families which are broken and incapable of love, often living in
situations of material and spiritual poverty, slaves to the new idols of a society,
which, not infrequently, promises them only a future of unemployment and
marginalization. To these new poor the Catholic school turns in a spirit of love.’ iv
With the increase of social media, there does not appear to be an increase in terms of
relational intimacy. On the contrary, many young people live in a virtual reality finding
themselves becoming more isolated, depressed and ‘live in an environment devoid of truly
human relationships; as a result, they suffer from loneliness and a lack of affection.’ v The call
of the Shepherd is not simply to guide the flock away from danger, but also, to lead them to
new pastures. This is reflected in Don Bosco’s preventive system which seeks not only to
prevent the young from being led astray by what is harmful, but equally, by leading them
towards what is truly life-giving.

The option for the poor, as Pope Benedict XVI has taught, ‘is implicit in our Christian faith in
a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty.’ vi Inspired by this, the
Church has made an option for the poor which is understood as a ‘special form of primacy in
the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness.’
Pope Francis concludes: ‘I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to
teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the
suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them.’ vii St Francis de Sales
reminds us of the centrality of the heart. Like Jesus we need to allow our hearts to be
moved with compassion for the poor. ‘An option for the poor cannot be “demanded” from
others, because it has to come from the heart. Without this important insight, a
“preferential option” may be translated as a “moral obligation.” This in turn, may leave us
feeling ‘justified in demanding this from everyone, under threat of considering them less
Christian, less committed, less evangelical.’viii

Paradoxically, therefore, the poor are a blessing because they invite us to live the Gospel by
responding with compassion and generosity. In so doing, we fulfil our common vocation to
love God and our neighbour. We participate in God’s compassion. This fundamental
characteristic of God’s love is revealed from the outset with Moses: ‘I have seen the
affliction of my people… and I have heard their cry because I know their suffering.’ (Ex.3:7) It
reaches its culmination in Jesus Christ who lays down his life for us (Jn.10:18) and ‘in whom
dwells the fullness of God bodily’ (Col.2:9).

To be compassionate like Jesus means we need to first recognise the needs of others and
then respond. ‘[The] primary reason to preach the Gospel to the poor, and why the church
has to get back in touch with the little ones and the marginalized, is so that the Church itself
can be converted; so that the church itself can know again what the questions are; so that
the church itself can recover compassion; so that the Church itself can discover what God is
really like. So that the Church can again meet Jesus’ ix The Church in her members are the
body of Christ. It follows that ‘within the community of believers there can never be room
for a poverty that denies anyone what is needed for a dignified life.’ x As disciples of the
Lord, we are to have the mind and heart of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) and be moved with
compassion. ‘Our faith in Christ who became poor, and was always close to the poor and the
outcast, is the basis of our concern for the integral development of society’s most neglected
members.’xi It is very clear that following on from the attitude and behaviour of Jesus we are
not called to adopt a position of neutrality in relation to the poor. (FINAL JUDGMENT
MT.25:31-46)

MERCIFUL LOVE
Francis can name sins as “our dear imperfections.” xii ‘God hates our faults because they are
faults, but, on the other hand, in a certain sense God loves our faults since they give God the
opportunity to show his mercy and give us an opportunity to remain humble and to
understand and sympathize with our neighbour’s faults.’ xiii Unlike us, God knows we are
hurting before we commit sins. “To add more hurt or punishment because of sins would be
absurd. For God sees underneath our sins and knows they are conceived in misery.” xiv It is
this misery that attracts the mercy of God. Francis recommends that we have ‘great
confidence in the goodness and mercy of God; for between mercy and misery there is so
close a connection that the one cannot be exercised without the other.’ xv The etymology of
the Latin word for mercy (misericordia) gives us a clue to its real meaning – “miseris cor
dare”, that is, a ‘Heart which gives itself to the miserable, a Heart which nourishes itself on
miseries by consuming them.”xvi

“Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus
of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), after
having revealed his name to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex34:6), has never ceased to show, in various
ways throughout history, his divine nature. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father
(cf. Jn 14:9).’xvii Indeed, Francis continues, ‘if God had not created us, God would still indeed
have been perfect in goodness, but God would not have been actually merciful since mercy
can only be exercised towards the miserable. xviii Jesus, indeed, is God’s mercy searching for
us, seeking to reconcile us with the Father so as to restore the bond that we have broken
through our sins. Jesus, therefore, reveals God’s justice as restorative not punitive. It is this
movement of restorative love, epitomized on the cross, that our two saints enter into fully
so as to ‘seek the lost, bring back the strays, bandage the injured, and strengthen the weak’
(Ezek.34:16).

God’s response to our sins is not punishment, but mercy. When we turn towards God, our
Father, with a repentant heart, we discover ourselves in his embrace like the Prodigal son.
As we are held in his embrace, the shame and guilt caused by our sins are eclipsed by his
merciful love. God refuses to enter into our self-condemnation or self-loathing, but rather,
sets our hearts free from sin and its effects. St Therese of Lisieux, who could be considered a
spiritual daughter of St Francis de Sales, due to her trust and confidence in merciful love,
offers us a wonderful insight into this mystery.
I would like to make you understand by means of a very simple comparison how
much Jesus loves even imperfect souls who trust in his mercy. Imagine a father has two
children who are mischievous, disobedient and when he comes to punish them, he
sees one of them who trembles and gets away from him in terror, having however, in
the bottom of his heart the feeling that he deserves to be punished; and his brother,
on the contrary, throws himself into his father’s arms, saying that he is sorry for
having caused him any trouble that he loves him, and to prove it he will be good from now
on and if this child asked his father to punish him with a kiss. I do not believe that the
heart of the happy father could resist the filial confidence of his child, whose sincerity
and love he knows. He realizes, however, that more than once his son will fall into
the same faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always, if his son takes him by the
heart.xix
How many of us would dare to ask the Father to punish us with a kiss when we have done
wrong? Only a child could get away with that. Indeed, at the beginning of each confession
we say ‘bless me Father for I have sinned’ which in Theresian language is akin to saying: ‘kiss
me Father for I have sinned.’
The Catechism states simply: ‘the Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to
sinners.’xx Here we begin to understand the real Good News that there is something even
greater than “Unconditional Love,” namely, “Merciful Love.” St Francis writes: ‘God is as
good and merciful when we are weak and imperfect as when we are strong and perfect.’ xxi
In the face of our sin, God’s steadfast love remains unchanging and is experienced as mercy.
Mercy surpasses the concept of “unconditional love” because it takes into account the
reality of our human weakness. God refuses to ignore our weaknesses, imperfections and
sinfulness. God also asks us not to ignore them. God wants us to stand in the light of his
truth. As Jesus says, the ‘truth will set you free’ (Jn.8:32) and ‘if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ (1Jn.1:8). ‘Like a physician who probes the
wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin…
Conversion requires convincing of sin… in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a
double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption.
The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.’xxii

God deals with the reality of our weakness and sinfulness by taking it onto himself in his Son
on the cross and transforming it through merciful love. As Isaiah proclaims: ‘in your love you
have kept me from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back’
(Isa.38:17). The nadir of his ‘hour’ on the cross becomes the epiphanic moment of God’s
merciful love poured out for us. When everything is eclipsed in darkness, the light of
merciful love breaks through as the true significance of Christ’s self-sacrificing love begins to
dawn on us. Here we have the fulfilment of the prophet Micah’s prayer: ‘What god can
compare with you: taking fault away, pardoning crime, not cherishing anger for ever but
delighting in showing mercy? Once more have pity on us, tread down our faults, to the
bottom of the sea throw all our sins.’ (Micah 7:18-20). We need to ‘constantly contemplate
the mystery of mercy’ so that it can drop down from our heads to our hearts. For ‘i t is a
wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. Mercy: the word reveals
the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which
God comes to meet us. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and us, opening our hearts to
the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.’xxiii
If we return to the person of Jesus, we clearly see the embodiment of his Father’s mercy
because he seeks to heal the wounds of sin: ‘it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the
sick’ (Mk.2:17). Take, for example, the story of Zacchaeus (Lk.19:1-10). Jesus does not ask
him to change before inviting himself to his house as a sinner. This acceptance by Jesus
brings about a transformation in Zacchaeus so that he no longer feels the need to cling to
compensations or his possessions: “I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have
cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Lk.19:8). Jesus
replies: “Today salvation has come to this house… because the Son of Man came to seek
and to save the lost.” (Lk.19:9-10). The graced moment of transformation arrives when
Jesus ‘stopped and looked up’ at him (Lk.19:5). Under this gaze, Zacchaeus experiences
himself as being loved and accepted. A similar transformation takes place for the woman
caught in adultery. Jesus is the only one who does not stand in judgment of her but lowers
himself to her level. Then, Jesus ‘looked up at her’ (Jn.8:10). xxiv He did not stand in
condemnation but does warn her not to sin again. Allowing ourselves to be held in this
merciful gaze of God, brings acceptance, and this acceptance brings transformation.
Merciful love, ultimately, recognizes our potential for change and growth and is interested
in our transformation for the better. Furthermore, merciful love actively engages with us in
bringing about this transformation. God’s mercy is free-flowing, abundant and lavish, as
epitomized by his self-gift on the cross.
i
Radio address of Pope John XXIII, 11th September 1962, cited by Peter Hebblethwhaite, ‘John XXIII’ in Adrian Hastings,
ed., Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 30.
ii
Paul VI, Insegnamenti, VI, 377; P.J. Rosato, Cena del Signore e amore sociale, 83.
iii
Moloney, ‘The Salesian Charism and the Good Shepherd motif,’ 49.
iv
Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium (London: CTS,
1997) n.15
v
Congregation for Catholic Education, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, (London: CTS, 1988),
n.11.
vi
Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Address at the Inaugural Session of the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and
Caribbean Bishops’ (13 May 2007) 3: AAS 99(2007), 450.
vii
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013) n.198.
viii
‘Adolfo Nicolás, SJ, ‘From Distraction to Dedication: An invitation to the center’, in Civilta Cattolica, 29.05.2020.
ix
Richard Rohr, Job and the Mystery of Suffering, (Leominster: Gracewing, 1998), 134
x
Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (2005) n. 20.
xi
Evangelii Gaudium, n.186.
xii
Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy (New York: Random House, 2016), 70.
xiii
Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ, Ascending with Ignatius (Maryland: The Word Among Us Press, 2020), 52.
xiv
John Jacob Raub, Who Told You that You were Naked? (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1992), 86.
xv
OEA VI:20.
xvi
St Augustine, Etymology, cited in: Jean C. D’Elbée, I Believe in Love (New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2001),
19.
xvii
Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, n.1.
xviii
OEA IV:20.
xix
St Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings, selected with and introduction by Mary Frohlich (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis
Books, 2003), 172-173.
xx
CCC. 1846.
xxi
OEA VII:22.
xxii
Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem (1986), 31 § 2.
xxiii
Ibid, n.2.
xxiv
Jn.8:10 (Revised Standard Version translation)