Pope Leo is spending a long Assumption feast day weekend in Castel Gandolfo, with plans to return Tuesday. On Sunday, he celebrated Mass there, and then shared lunch with a group of people who benefit from the services of the local diocesan Caritas.
Many of the lunch guests also participated in the Mass, leading the Holy Father to speak of human dignity, the welcome of God, and our poverty.
"I encourage you not to distinguish between the one who assists and the one who is assisted, between the one who seems to give and the one who seems to receive, between the one who appears poor and the one who feels the need to offer time, skills, and help. We are the Church of the Lord, a Church of the poor -- each one precious and each one a participant, and each one the bearer of a unique Word of God. Each one is a gift for the rest."
In this respect, the Pope affirmed that all of us have our poverties.
Let us not leave the Lord outside our churches, our homes, and our lives. Instead, let us let him enter through the poor. And then we will make peace with our own poverty, that which we fear and deny when we seek tranquility and security at any cost.
Then at the lunch, the Holy Father offered a further reflection about human dignity. Surrounded by the beauty of nature in the Gardens of the Pontifical Villas at Castel Gandolfo, the Pope spoke of the "most beautiful creature."
[T]he most beautiful creature is the one created in the likeness, in the image of God -- which is all of us. Each of us represents that image of God, and it is important to always remember that we find this presence of God in everyone.
Therefore, being gathered here this afternoon for this lunch is also living together with God, in this communion, in this fraternity.
