Blest are You Poor, the Reign of God is Yours
By John Graveline, Director of Parish Life
November 16, 2025
“Blest are you poor, the reign of God is yours. Blest are you who hunger, you shall be filled.” –Luke 6:20-21
As we near the Christmas culmination of this Jubilee Year liturgically celebrating the 2025th anniversary of the birth of Jesus, this weekend we celebrate the Jubilee of the Poor. It doesn’t seem to me that poverty is something to celebrate. Almost none of us would choose to live in poverty. We work hard, save, and plan to ensure that we and our loved ones are well-provided for and worry to a greater or lesser degree if we have enough saved for our children’s college tuition and/or retirement. For many of us, it may feel shameful to be in the position to ask for financial assistance. However, as usual, Jesus asks us to rethink the conventional wisdom of this world and reorient ourselves according to the wisdom of God.
An appropriate example of this reorientation might be St. Martin of Tours. Martin was born in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary) in the 4th century. His father was a Roman soldier, and he was made a soldier at the age of 15. He served as a soldier in Gaul (modern-day France). One day, near Amiens, he encountered a poor, almost naked man begging for alms. As he watched his fellow soldiers either ignore the man or look upon him with contempt, Martin was moved with compassion. He removed his soldier’s cloak, cut it in half with his sword, and gave it to the man. That night, Martin had a dream of Jesus (Martin was not yet a Christian) wearing his cloven cloak. Martin became a Christian and ask to be released from military service to his great humiliation in the sight of Roman authorities. He devoted his life to live apart from others in a life of prayer, begging, and almsgiving. However, his Christlike witness was so powerful that others gathered around him asking to live the way he did. Eventually, he was elected to be the bishop of Tours by popular demand, against his wish to live a simple life. Becoming a bishop did not change Martin. He still lived in a simple cell and traveled by foot or donkey to visit his parishes. While he steadfastly taught against the heretical teachings of his time and place, he was known for rejecting ever using violence against heretics, instead offering them the medicine of mercy.
Just as St. Martin was called to reorient his thinking and profession to align himself with the truth and compassion of Jesus, I believe that we are being called today to rethink and reorient ourselves concerning how we view and treat those who struggle under the burden of modern-day poverty. As Pope Leo recently wrote, “Christians, too, on a number of occasions, have succumbed to attitudes shaped by secular ideologies or political and economic approaches that lead to gross generalizations and mistaken conclusions. The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of the world.” (On Love for the Poor, para. 15)
One of the major principles of Catholic Social Justice is the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church teaches that we are called to, “a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity . . . it affects the life of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ, but it applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our manner of living, and to the logical decisions to be made concerning the ownership and use of goods . . . [we] cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without health care and, above all, those without hope of a better future.” (no. 182). This does not mean that God loves the poor more than the rich. However, it means that God always stands with those who have no one else to stand with them, thus we are called to stand where God stands.
In March of 1991, the bishop of Saginaw at the time, Bishop Untener, decreed that all meetings in the diocese over the course of the next three months were to begin with the agenda item: “How shall what we are doing here affect or involve the poor?” Reflecting upon the experience throughout our diocese, he wrote, “now we must see if we will think and act differently. The true measure of success lies in the months and years ahead.” In a similar way, as we prepare during this Jubilee Year, in the midst of layoffs and government shutdown, the uncertainty of charitable and governmental assistance to the poor, and the predictable Holiday commercialism and consumerism, to liturgically celebrate for the 2025th time the coming of God among us in a poor, humble manger, perhaps a fruitful spiritual practice would be to ask ourselves in our Christmas preparations: “How is what I am doing right now affecting or involving the poor?” If our Christmas preparations allow for a “preferential option” for the poor, this Advent/Christmas Season could be the one to transform our lives the way St. Martin’s life was transformed by a single act of compassionate solidarity with the poor.
John