Poverty is a force for liberation, because...
in addition to being an accusation of sin, and a force of Christian spirituality...
it is a commitment.
Christians, this word is for me first of all.
I must give an example of being a Christian. And it is for all of you, my brother priests, and for you, religious, and for all baptized people who call yourselves Christians. Listen to what the Medellín conference says: Poverty, as a commitment that takes on, voluntarily and out of love, the condition of the needy of this world, in order to witness to the evil their condition represents, and to spiritual freedom from wealth,... follows in this the example of Christ... who made his own all the consequences of the sinful condition of humans, and 'being rich, became poor' in order to save us.
This is the commitment of being a Christian:
to follow Christ in his incarnation.
If Christ, the God of majesty, became a lowly human...
and lived with the poor, and even died on a cross like a slave...
our Christian faith should also be lived in the same way.
The Christian who does not want to live this commitment of solidarity with the poor...
is not worthy to be called Christian.
Christ invites us not to fear persecution.
Believe me, brothers and sisters, anyone committed to the poor...
must suffer the same fate as the poor.
And in El Salvador, we know the fate of the poor:
to be taken away...
to be tortured...
to be jailed...
to be found dead.
Let whoever desires this world’s privileges...
and not the persecutions that come from this commitment...
listen to the awesome paradox in today’s gospel: “Blessed are you when people hate you, and reject you, and insult you, and say you are evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day, and leap for joy, because your reward will be great in heaven.”
With great joy and gratitude I wish to congratulate our priests. It is just when they are most committed to the poor, that they are most defamed. It is just when they are most at the side of our people in their wretchedness, that they are most slandered.
I wish to rejoice with the religious men and women who have taken their stand with our people, even to the point of heroically suffering with them, and with the Christian communities and with the catechists who stay at their posts while cowards flee.
Let those who would flee the effects of persecution, of slander, of degradation, listen to what Christ says this Sunday: “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you! That is what your ancestors did with the false prophets.” [Lk 6:17-26]
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