Pope John Paul has said that international institutions, national governments and the centres controlling the world economy must all undertake "brave plans and projects" to ensure a more just sharing of the goods of the earth. This should happen "both within individual countries and in relations between nations", he said. It was not just individuals who had opportunities to show their readiness to invite the poor to share in their prosperity.
In his Lenten statement the Pope said "new forms of poverty and the pressing questions which trouble many hearts await a concrete and appropriate response". There were those who were lonely, on the margins of society, the hungry, the victims of violence, those who had no hope. "There are situations of persistent misery which cannot but impinge upon the conscience of Christians, reminding them of their duty to address these situations both as individuals and as a community," he said.
If people lived Lent with their eyes fixed on God "it becomes a unique time of charity", he said, "manifested in our works of spiritual and corporal mercy. Our thoughts go especially to those excluded from the banquet of everyday consumerism. There are many like Lazarus who knock on the door of society, all those who have no share in the material benefits which progress has brought."
Many of our brothers and sisters could bear their situation of misery, discomfort and sickness only because they were certain that one day they would be called to the eternal banquet of heaven. "Lent therefore directs our gaze beyond the present time, beyond history, beyond the horizon of this world, towards perfect and eternal communion with the Most Holy Trinity. Lent invites us to overcome the temptation of seeing the realities of this world as definitive and to recognise that our homeland is in heaven," he said.
