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Pope Francis raises his glass at the start of a lunch with poor and economically disadvantaged people in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Nov. 19, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Nov 12, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis will have lunch on Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Vatican with 1,300 people “who hold a privileged place in God’s heart” as part of celebrations to mark the eighth World Day of the Poor.

This year’s lunch, organized by the Dicastery for the Service of Charity in collaboration with the Italian Red Cross, will be held inside the Paul VI Hall as a sign of the Holy Father’s desire to be close with “those who are most in need: the poor, the marginalized, the suffering, and the forgotten.” 

In anticipation of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis’ message for the eighth World Day of the Poor stressed the importance for the Catholic faithful to be aware of the presence and needs of the “poor whom we encounter daily.”

“As we journey toward the holy year, I urge everyone to become pilgrims of hope, setting tangible goals for a better future. Let us not forget to keep ‘the little details of love’ (Gaudete et Exsultate, 145): stopping, drawing near, giving a little attention, a smile, a caress, a word of comfort,” he wrote.

Since establishing the World Day of the Poor in 2016, which is celebrated each year one week before the solemn feast of Christ the King, the pope has held the annual tradition of welcoming Rome’s poor into the Vatican to dine with him and be served lunch.

Last year, the Dicastery for the Service of Charity worked alongside Hilton Hotels and the Community of Sant’Egidio to provide approximately 1,200 lunches — which included cannelloni, meatballs with tomato sauce, cauliflower purée, tiramisu, and small pastries — for refugees, the homeless, and men and women who are suffering economic disadvantage.

Other services provided by the Dicastery for the Service of Charity in the lead-up to the Nov. 17 celebration of the World Day of the Poor include free health care services at the Vatican. 

From Nov. 11–16, the Madre di Misericordia clinic offers those in need with emergency services, internal medicine, flu vaccines, blood tests, swabs, and dressings as well as specialized medical visits including dentistry, surgery, and cardiology.

Reflecting on the theme of this year’s World Day of the Poor, “The Prayer of the Poor Rises Up to God (cf. Sir 21:5),” the Holy Father insisted that care for those in need must not stop at providing material aid only. 

“We need to make the prayer of the poor our own and pray together with them,” he said. “The worst discrimination that the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care.”

“The great majority of the poor have a special openness to the faith; they need God and we must not fail to offer them his friendship, his blessing, his word, the celebration of the sacraments and a journey of growth and maturity in the faith. Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care,” he continued, citing his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

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