Sunday 15 November marks the tenth World Day of the Poor, with the theme “The Lord is the refuge of the poor” (Psalm 14:6). Pope Leo XIV invites the Church to ask whether people experiencing poverty have a privileged place in our parishes, schools and organisations. CSAN’s new resource encourages communities to listen to people on the margins, recognise poverty in its many forms, and respond with compassion and justice.
The pack includes a nine-day novena, beginning on Friday 6 November, with Scripture, reflection and prayer on mental anguish, homelessness, isolation in later life, abuse and violence, imprisonment, material poverty, insecure immigration status and youth unemployment. It also offers discussion questions and a See–Judge–Act activity for parish and school groups: seeing realities clearly, discerning them in the light of the Gospel and Catholic Social Teaching, and choosing action that challenges poverty’s structural causes. The resource calls us not to act for people experiencing poverty, but to listen and work alongside them, honouring their dignity, voice and agency as together we build communities of justice, love and peace.
Throughout the novena, members of the CSAN network will join us each day in prayer and share reflections on the different forms poverty can take. At the heart of these contributions will be a commitment to amplifying voices shaped by lived experience and affirming the agency, gifts and inherent dignity of every person experiencing poverty.
