Preferencyjna miłość ubogich w duszpasterstwie parafialnym

Abstract

Parish pastorate should include leading the community lo mature awareness that in each of its members and in their concordant unity they are the subjects of permanent catechesis. profound celebration of liturgy and active service of love. Love understood as service – diaconale – put into effect in parish communities should be understood in an affirmative way, that is, that the whole community is called upon to a more intensive involvement, to bettering the quality of its service, to realising its tasks more deeply. So diaconale of love cannot be pushed to the margin – that is to private and accidental activities, as it influences the proper mode of Church community’s existence. It also cannot be easily delegated to people especially designated to do this, although competence is required in the various services. The option for the poor is understood in an integral meaning, which is connected with understanding the Church as “the Church of the poor” It is a place where one lives with the poor, co-operates with the poor, where they have the right to express their opinions, where they find their liberation in Christ and they become promoters of changes in the society so that it can become proper for people. This means that the poor should find a way to be the Church, to be the community in which a just distribution takes place. Preferential love of the poor follows from the very Gospel of love, and the testimony of a radically poor life is a constitutive element of the option for the poor. Preferential love of the poor requires liberation from economical-social, sinful structures that are still present in our society; it also requires work on putting into effect the just social, political and economic order. Hence the Church calls for a more complete involvement of individual Christians is social-political life, which should be an expression of the Christian active love of the neighbour.