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INFORM-A^CTION

Issue Number 47 - December 2002

A Reflection by Gustavo Gutierrez

(from Option for the Poor: Assessment and Implications, 1994)

What then do we mean by "the poor"? I think that there really isn't a good definition. I think that a good way to speak of the poor is to say that the poor are the insignificant, those who do not count in society and very often in the Christian Churches as well. The poor person is the one who must wait a week at the hospital to see a doctor. A poor person is one who has no social clout to change this situation. The poor are socially insignificant, except before God. They are always present in statistics, but they have no names.

I will give you an example which may seem a bit cruel. I took part in the funeral of Archbishop Oscar Romero whom I knew well. It is calculated that during his funeral forty people were killed in the central plaza of the San Salvador Cathedral. We know very well Oscar Romero's name because he was an Archbishop, a great man of course. But we do not know the names of these forty people who died in order to see Romero for the last time. Beside me in the cathedral I saw five dead women, another severely wounded, but still alive; I heard her and I could thus do something for her. We do not know the names of these people because they are poor just as much in life as in death. In saying this, of course, I say nothing against Archbishop Romero, but I am saying quite simply that if one occupies an important place in the church, which is an institution, one is not exactly insignificant. But we do not know the names of the poor. They remain anonymous.

Born in a stable, hailed only by shepherds, offered in the temple as a child of poor parents, hunted by a bloodthirsty despot - Jesus from the beginning shares the lot of those on the extreme periphery, those who do not count for much. To grasp the full meaning of Christmas perhaps we should go, at least in our minds and imagination, to the periphery of our world to find those most marginalised. They are many, indeed a majority. We marginalise them even further by the names we give them... The Christmas event contains within itself a call to conversion, to change, for all Christians. It calls us to give witness in our lives to the truth we celebrate. It was a call to love, to brotherhood and sisterhood. Above all, he came to bring good news to the poor.

(Noel Kerins, Columban Priest)

What good news do we have for the poor this Christmas?

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		INFORM-A^CTION Issue Number 47 - December 2002 A Reflection by Gustavo Gutierrez (from Option for the Poor: Assessment and Implications, 1994) What then do we mean by "the poor"? I think that there really isn't a good definition. I think that a good way to speak of the poor is to say that the poor are the insignificant, those who do not count in society and very often in the Christian Churches as well. The poor person is the one who must wait a week at the hospital to see a doctor. A poor person is one who has no social clout to change this situation. The poor are socially insignificant, except before God. They are always present in statistics, but they have no names. I will give you an example which may seem a bit cruel. I took part in the funeral of Archbishop Oscar Romero whom I knew well. It is calculated that during his funeral forty people were killed in the central plaza of the San Salvador Cathedral. We know very well Oscar Romero's name because he was an Archbishop, a great man of course. But we do not know the names of these forty people who died in order to see Romero for the last time. Beside me in the cathedral I saw five dead women, another severely wounded, but still alive; I heard her and I could thus do something for her. We do not know the names of these people because they are poor just as much in life as in death. In saying this, of course, I say nothing against Archbishop Romero, but I am saying quite simply that if one occupies an important place in the church, which is an institution, one is not exactly insignificant. But we do not know the names of the poor. They remain anonymous. Born in a stable, hailed only by shepherds, offered in the temple as a child of poor parents, hunted by a bloodthirsty despot - Jesus from the beginning shares the lot of those on the extreme periphery, those who do not count for much. To grasp the full meaning of Christmas perhaps we should go, at least in our minds and imagination, to the periphery of our world to find those most marginalised. They are many, indeed a majority. We marginalise them even further by the names we give them... The Christmas event contains within itself a call to conversion, to change, for all Christians. It calls us to give witness in our lives to the truth we celebrate. It was a call to love, to brotherhood and sisterhood. Above all, he came to bring good news to the poor. (Noel Kerins, Columban Priest) What good news do we have for the poor this Christmas? Newsletter Index