‘He has sent me to preach good news to the poor’: (Luke 4:18) was the first mission statement of Jesus. When the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come?’ He repeats the same thing to them: ‘The poor have the gospel preached to them’ (Luke 7:22).

It is true that the vast majority of those who came to listen to Jesus were poor people. But where and how did Jesus preach the gospel to the poor? According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus begins his main sermon by proclaiming, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours”. It is true that Jesus’ preaching was marked by a great deal of love for and partiality to the poor. Although it's true that the content of the sermons had that predeliction, still his preaching was addressed to everyone. Then again we ask the same question: how did he preach the Gospel to the poor? The answer that I derive is that, his very life was the Gospel to the poor. He did not become just 'a man', but a poor man. From the crib to the cross, he was poor; weak; vulnerable, hungry; thirsty; abandoned; wandering: a beggar.

When you look at it that way, he must have said, as Luke writes, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.”

Is it because poverty, hunger, and weeping are virtues in themselves that the kingdom of God becomes theirs? Not at all. It is because God loves them with all His heart that they become Blessed and the Kingdom of God becomes theirs. The core of the matter is that ‘God became poor.’

Don't you remember that he once said: "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me" ? "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the world" was his promise later. He also indicated how he was going to be with us through the words of the judge: "Amen I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brethren of mine, you did it for me".

That is why the call to discipleship is also a call to love -and to some extent become- the poor, the weak, the needy, the rejected, the sinners, the sick, the refugees, the prisoners.