World Day of the Poor

Hands holding a bowl

“Christian hope embraces the certainty that our prayer reaches God’s presence; not just any prayer but rather the prayer of the poor!” Pope Francis

Sunday, November 17, 2024, is the World Day of the Poor, a day established by Pope Francis in 2017 for Catholics to "reflect on how poverty is at the very heart of the Gospel." The theme for 2024 is "The prayer of the poor rises up to God" (Sirach 21:5).

"The poor hold a privileged place in God's heart," Pope Francis said in his message for the day. "God knows the sufferings of his children because he is an attentive and caring father. As a father, he takes care of those who are most in need: the poor, the marginalized, the suffering, and the forgotten. No one is excluded from his heart, for in his eyes, we are all poor and needy. We are all beggars because without God, we would be nothing."

The pope stressed that God will never abandon us and will never leave us without a response to our prayers.

"He does not forget you nor could he ever do so. We all have had the experience of prayers that seem to remain unanswered. Sometimes, we ask to be freed from a misery that makes us suffer and humiliates us, and God seems not to hear our cry. However, God’s silence does not mean he is inattentive to our sufferings; rather, it contains a word that must be received with trust, surrendering ourselves to him and to his will," Pope Francis said.

Why Pope Francis established the day in 2017

After the Year of Mercy, the pope said he wanted to set aside a day so that, throughout the world, Christian communities could become even greater signs of Christ's charity for those in need. We are called, Pope Francis wrote in his first World Day of the Poor message, "to draw near to the poor, to encounter them, to meet their gaze, to embrace them, and to let them feel the warmth of love that breaks through their solitude. Their outstretched hand is also an invitation to step out of our certainties and comforts, and to acknowledge the value of poverty in itself."

The pope said that for Christ's disciples, "poverty is, above all, a call to follow Jesus in his own poverty," and he asked Catholics to take as their example Saint Francis of Assisi, who kept his gaze fixed on Christ, allowing him to see and serve the poor.

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