7th day 

Among the last

‘‘Saint Teresa of Calcutta, canonized in 2016, has become a universal icon of the charity lived to the extreme in favor of the poor and the excluded of the society. Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, she dedicated her life to the dying abandoned on the streets of India. She took in the rejected, washed their wounds and accompanied them until their death with a tenderness that was prayer. Her love of the poorest among the poor meant that she not only took care of their material needs, but she also shared with them the Good News of the Gospel: We want to announce the Good News to the poor, that God loves them, that we love them, that they are someone for us, that, they too, were created by the loving hand of God to love and to be loved. Our poor people, our splendid people, are entirely worthy of love. They do not need our pity or compassion. They need our understanding love, they need our respect, they need us to treat them with dignity’’[1]. 

Sister Armelle Rabillard, French Spiritan, a talented painter, well-known for her magnificent paintings, was certainly there for the poor during her missionary life, as evidenced by the excerpt from Some Spiritan Figures: ‘‘This is Sister Armelle, in Senegal. In Dakar, she creates numerous paintings. She does not just sketch, but she paints, mixing sand and seashells onto the canvas. Part of her day is devoted to the poorest people. To the young girls from the Province who have come to the capital to earn some money, Sister Armelle gives basic lessons’’. Cf. Some Spiritan Figures, Book 3, page 14.

Prayer to be said together

Lord, give us your Spirit of wisdom and love, so that our charity towards the poorest of the poor may be inventive and bold.

[1]“I have loved you”, Dilexi te, Apostolic Exhortation on love towards the poorest, Pope Leo XIV, 2025, no. 77.