Dear Friends,
Our pilgrimage group has returned from Greece and Rome a bit weary but filled with the joy that comes when we journey with Jesus. Many of you have probably seen the video of Pope Leo going by our group at a special Saturday audience in the “pope mobile”. Our group had planned on yelling “Omaha” as he went by. So, we did. And he said it back to us, twice, “Omaha”. A simple gesture on his part, but it touched our hearts.
We were in Rome with thousands of other pilgrims who were there because this is a Jubilee Year. I have been to Rome numerous times before and have never encountered so many people. Some places in Rome are always filled with crowds of people – Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. However, this time, every place was filled, shoulder to shoulder, with pilgrims from all over the world. On Friday, in addition to the pilgrims filling the streets and restaurants, the press estimated a million people assembled to protest Israel’s treatment of Gaza. That protest closed about a third of the old city and made movement almost impossible. Through it all, the pilgrims from Omaha were great troopers, enduring hardship without complaint and giving it all over to God.
Pope Leo held the special audience on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi and as part of a gathering to honor migrants. About 60,000 of us were present to be with Pope Leo as he addressed the issue of poverty in our world. While we were in Rome, Pope Leo also released his first exhortation concerning poverty. “I often wonder, even though the teaching of Sacred Scripture is so clear about the poor, why many people continue to think that they can safely disregard the poor,” Pope Leo XIV states in the exhortation, known by its Latin title, “Dilexi Te” (“I have loved you”). The document was begun by Pope Francis before his death and finished by Pope Leo.
“For Christians, the problem of the poor leads to the very heart of our faith,” Pope Leo says, because “the poor are not a sociological category, but the very ‘flesh’ of Christ.” He adds, “No Christian can regard the poor simply as a societal problem; they are part of our ‘family.’ They are ‘one of us.’” He describes “love for the poor—whatever the form their poverty may take” as “the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God. Indeed, one of the priorities of every movement of renewal within the Church has always been a preferential concern for the poor.”
Pope Leo spent half of his life working with the poor in Peru and so writes not out of theory but out of experience. The complete exhortation is available at the Vatican website, and I would encourage you to read it. It is not that long and is not difficult reading. I may give you excerpts from the exhortation here over the next few weeks.
We are in the midst of the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal. Hopefully, you have received a letter from Archbishop McGovern inviting you to be a part of the Appeal. We have a video message from the Archbishop this weekend at the Masses. The Archdiocese is also inviting us to spend time reflecting on our lived practice of the faith over the next few weeks. This weekend, I am inviting you to reflect on how your prayer life is going and to recommit to spending time with God. Next week, we look at service to others and then to the sharing of the gifts that God has given.
Our Spaghetti Dinner is around the corner. Hopefully, you will join us in service at the dinner or at least come over and enjoy the food and friendship. Every bit of our “profit” from the dinner goes to All Saints School, which serves the lower income families in our neighborhood. This is one way we can live out what Pope Leo is teaching in his exhortation.
Peace,
Fr. Damian