“The poor you will always have with you” is a provocative statement that our Lord tells his disciples at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8). A reminder for the Lord’s disciples to be generous and compassionate toward the poor.

My first real experience in service to the poor was at Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon.

This parish was located on Burnside and actively served its guests each day with soup, basic needs, and invited them to share in Eucharist.

I remember the feeling of accompanying guests downstairs to help them put together socks and other basic needs into their bags. Many times I helped them carry their suitcases down the stairs, the only items they owned. They trusted me to help carry their belongings. I was moved by how the same guests joined us for Mass later that day. I experienced the church of the poor, the church for the poor.

Three years later, I returned to Downtown Chapel and spent my Friday nights on the streets with the guests of Burnside. I learned appropriate body language, good manners, and never to treat guests like second class citizens. That experience of being with them in line as they waited for Friday night soup changed my attitude toward the poor, it gave me a new horizon for life. I remembered the words of Jesus, “The poor you will always have with you.”

In today’s reading from Amos, the prophet calls out the exploiters. He calls out their dishonest practice of mistreating the poor. They are not loving people by using money. On the contrary, they are using people and loving money. These crooked people have everything upside down.

While the poor cannot see this cruel act, God sees it. Even though these people do not love the poor, God will always love the poor. As the psalmist declares, “Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.” In the final analysis, God cannot be fooled and we sow what we reap. God sees the outside and inside of every human heart.

In the second reading, we are reminded to pray for the proper use of authority at all levels of power and the evangelization of all people that they may come to know Jesus. To know Christ is to know peace that all men may lift up holy hands, without anger or argument.

Remember the poor and be people who announce the saving love of Jesus Christ. We find him and are nurtured in the Eucharist. We need the shape of the Eucharist to prepare us to serve the Lord in the poor. What is that shape? We serve the poor as we share our lives as blessed, broken, and shared.

We respond to the invitation of the late Pope Francis who said,

Let us go forth, then, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ… I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life… – Evangelii Gaudium 49