While the rich, whose attitude is stigmatized by Amos, do not care about the ruin of Joseph’s house, occupied as they are with enjoying life by filling it with comforts and riches, God cares for his poor. This is recalled by the very name of the poor in Luke’s parable. While the rich man remains without a name, because his inability to recognize the one who lies at his door makes him unknown to God, the poor possess only the richness of a name, Lazarus, which means “God has helped”. He, who was thrown to the ground by the indifference of the majority, is now welcomed in the intimacy of God, in the place of honor at the banquet of the kingdom. An impassable abyss separates him from the rich now. An abyss that neither God, nor death, nor an undecipherable fate have created, since it was the indifference of the rich who established it. And it is useless for Lazarus to rise from the dead to go and warn his brothers. The true sign that we must see, and from which we can let our hearts change, is not Lazarus risen from the dead, but Lazarus who lies needy at the door of his house. The great danger of wealth is this: rather than making you bad, it makes you blind. And it is indifference, which creates distance between us and the poor, to confine us in the distance even from God.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey