By Linda Bordoni
Pope Leo XIV welcomed members of the Opera San Francesco per i Poveri (“St Francis’ Work for the Poor”), on Monday, encouraging them to remain faithful to their mission of providing assistance, welcome, and promoting human dignity.
He was addressing a delegation from the Milan-based institution, which for nearly seven decades has been providing meals, clothing, medical care and support to more than 30,000 people every year.
“With joy I meet you, members of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri,” the Pope said. “For nearly seventy years your institution has been committed to ‘ensuring assistance and hospitality to people in need and fostering the full human development of the person in the light of the Christian tradition, especially the Franciscan tradition, in the teaching and Magisterium of the Church.’”
Recalling the origins of the initiative in the heart of Capuchin friar Fra Cecilio Maria Cortinovis, he highlighted how “the beautiful adventure of which you today are witnesses and protagonists” was born from faith and generosity.
Three dimensions of charity
In his address, the Pope underlined three dimensions of the work of Opera San Francesco: “assistere, accogliere e promuovere” – “to assist, to welcome, and to promote.”
“To assist”, he said, “means being present to the needs of others. And it is striking to see the number and variety of services that, over the years, you have managed to organise and offer to those who turn to you … supporting in various ways more than thirty thousand people every year.”
Alongside assistance, he continued, is to welcome: “making space for the other in one’s heart, in one’s life, offering time, listening, support, prayer. It is the attitude of looking into the eyes, of shaking hands, of stooping down, so dear to Pope Francis.”
Finally, promoting, the Pope explained, means helping people grow in freedom and dignity: “Here the gratuitousness of the gift and respect for the dignity of persons come into play, so that one cares for those one meets simply for their good … without expecting something in return and without imposing conditions. Just as God does with each of us, indicating a way, offering all the help necessary to walk it, but then leaving us free.”
He recalled the words of Saint John Paul II: “It is a matter of effectively increasing the dignity and creativity of each individual, of his or her capacity to respond to their own vocation and thus to God’s call contained within it.”
A mission for the Church and society
“This, dear friends,” the Pope affirmed, “is the task that the Church entrusts to you, for the benefit of the people who gather around the structures you manage and also of society as a whole.”
Bestowing his apostolic blessing, he concluded the audience, thanking those present for their work and for the witness they give by walking together. – Vatican News
