Does God really prefer the poor?

Editorial Staff

One of my neighbours is going through a very difficult time. Her husband, with whom she was in great harmony, died recently and now she lives with her two children, the eldest of whom, now an adult, is out of a job and has serious health problems, which involve heavy expenses for treatment and medicine. I try to be as close to her as I can and I always invite her to pray, to trust in the Lord. In recent days she put me on the spot, because she burst out saying: «But why are some people born with a spoon in their mouth, and others without anything? Why doesn’t the Lord do something, since He should see and provide? Don’t I anything?». I was blindsided and I didn’t know what to answer. Given the way things are going in the world, one may ask where the Presence of the Lord and His Providence are.

T.Z.

The drama of those who live in poverty and can barely make ends meet without losing hope places heavy demands on us and sometimes upsets us. In our usual way of speaking we tend to trace everything back to God, as if every event depended on his will. Actually, when the Lord created the world, in particular when he gave the humanity the gift of life, he didn’t leave us to our own devices but He made us responsible for ourselves and for others. As Pope Francis continually repeats, poverty and misery do not come from God who created us all equal, but are the fruit of our unwillingness to share equally the goods of the earth that belong, by right, to each and every one. Praying is a way of converting our hearts to God’s initial plan for our humanity. For the poorest, prayer is sometimes the only consolation because it reminds them that God does not want their poverty and misery, but as the Father of us all, he hopes that we will truly become more brother and sisters in solidarity.