Lent begins.

And here’s the Pope’s Lenten message..just so you’ll be ready.

Read it for part #254 of Benedict Spins Our Heads Around.

For you see, after last week, when some accused the Pope of getting all retreat-from-the-world on us, as he carefully teased apart justice and charity and the Church’s role in regard to each, he promptly follows it with a Lenten message that focuses on…Development?

My venerable Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, accurately described the scandal of underdevelopment as an outrage against humanity..

[snip]

In the face of the terrible challenge of poverty afflicting so much of the world’s population, indifference and self-centered isolation stand in stark contrast to the “gaze” of Christ.  Fasting and almsgiving, which, together with prayer, the Church proposes in a special way during the Lenten Season, are suitable means for us to become conformed to this “gaze”.  The examples of the saints and the long history of the Church’s missionary activity provide invaluable indications of the most effective ways to support development.  Even in this era of global interdependence, it is clear that no economic, social, or political project can replace that gift of self to another through which charity is expressed.  Those who act according to the logic of the Gospel live the faith as friendship with God Incarnate and, like Him, bear the burden of the material and spiritual needs of their neighbours.  They see it as an inexhaustible mystery, worthy of infinite care and attention.  They know that he who does not give God gives too little; as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta frequently observed, the worst poverty is not to know Christ.  Therefore, we must help others to find God in the merciful face of Christ.  Without this perspective, civilization lacks a solid foundation.

Thanks to men and women obedient to the Holy Spirit, many forms of charitable work intended to promote development have arisen in the Church: hospitals, universities, professional formation schools, and small businesses.  Such initiatives demonstrate the genuine humanitarian concern of those moved by the Gospel message, far in advance of other forms of social welfare.  These charitable activities point out the way to achieve a globalization that is focused upon the true good of mankind and, hence, the path towards authentic peace.  Moved like Jesus with compassion for the crowds, the Church today considers it her duty to ask political leaders and those with economic and financial power to promote development based on respect for the dignity of every man and woman.  An important litmus test for the success of their efforts is religious liberty, understood not simply as the freedom to proclaim and celebrate Christ, but also the opportunity to contribute to the building of a world enlivened by charity.  These efforts have to include a recognition of the central role of authentic religious values in responding to man’s deepest concerns, and in supplying the ethical motivation for his personal and social responsibilities.  These are the criteria by which Christians should assess the political programmes of their leaders.

Of course, it’s a fleshing out and continuation of Deus Caritas Est, picking up the same themes of the central role of charity in the life of the Church and its members. In short: One with Jesus in love, we look upon the suffering of the world, which is real and endemic, with his gaze. Entering into that, the pull is irresistible – God’s children are suffering now. Help them, in love, now.