Jesus in the poorest of the poor

The Divine Praises are a series of exclamations in which, repeating the words Blessed be... we glorify God, Jesus and the Spirit, and through them, Mary, Joseph and all the angels and saints. Halfway through, the invocation is Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the altar... The most Holy Sacrament of Jesus' real presence among us, before which we rightly kneel and bow; and the most Holy Sacrament which offers and invites each one of us into greater union and intimacy, through the immense joy and privilege of receiving Jesus in Communion. 

And several times recently I have heard, straight after this exclamation, an insertion first used by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity: Blessed be Jesus in the poorest of the poor. And I’m always struck by this: not only that it’s in there, but that it comes straight after the most Holy Sacrament. It just seems right and lovely, at so many levels, and so incarnational: that Jesus is exalted and glorified in his so-lovely Eucharistic presence, and all that this means, and also in the vulnerable humility of his less lovely, broken, well-disguised presence among us. 

It's lovely, and it's poignantly bittersweet, too; and challenging both in its juxtaposition, and its reminder of Jesus' identification with 'the least of' his sisters and brothers: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, sick, strangers, prisoners... People lacking dignity, nourishment, companionship and love... (Matthew 25: 31 - 46). A reminder, too, of Pope Leo's words at the start of Dilexi Te, that “in this call to recognise him in the poor and the suffering, we see revealed the very heart of Christ, his deepest feelings and choices, which every saint seeks to imitate.”... 

And those words, in turn, remind me that our Constitutions tell us that Jesus calls us to a personal encounter with him, in which he wants to make known to us the feelings and the preferences of his Heart. An encounter in prayer, primarily, but also in every aspect of our lives, and in every other encounter - including with him in the poorest and the least.

Today, as the Church marks the 10th World Day of the Poor, it is surely a good day to pray Blessed be Jesus in the poorest of the poor... And to ask for the grace to truly recognise him in the poor and the suffering, where we will also see revealed his Heart, and its deepest feelings and preferences, which we can only want to make our own.