In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis speaks movingly of this crisis of communal commitment when commenting on our indifference toward the needs of the poor.

To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. (EG 54)

Francis is not addressing the problem of poverty itself here. His concerns run much deeper. The root problem is a lack of solidarity with our suffering brethren in the human family. Caught up in our own lives, we fail to care for others and in some cases are not even aware of their existence or their needs as fellow human persons. Busy pursuing our own careers, wealth, possessions, and dreams of “financial security,” we don’t even notice that many people around us are barely surviving day-to-day.

The pope asks why a decline in the stock market captures our attention, but the death of a homeless person on the street, in the cold, does not. We remain unmoved by human suffering, deadened by our fixation on prosperity (EG 53, 54).

This pervasive indifference exemplifies what Pope Francis calls the “culture of exclusion.” Countless human beings among us are not even taken into consideration as a part of society. They are completely overlooked. “It’s no longer simply about exploration and oppression. Those

excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised — they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers’” (EG 53).

To overcome the culture of exclusion Pope Francis calls us to build a “culture of encounter” — a culture in which we get out of ourselves and have personal contact with the people around us, really looking at them, listening to them and treating them as true brothers and sisters. He illustrated this vision of encounter poignantly in a 2013 address to pilgrims in Buenos Aires in which he challenges us to give something much more valuable than money to the poor. He challenges us to give of ourselves.

I sometimes ask people: “Do you give alms?” They say to me: “Yes, Father.” “And when you give alms, do you look the person you are giving them to in the eye?” “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t really notice.” “Then you have not really encountered him. You tossed him the alms and walked off. When you give alms, do you touch the person’s hand or do you throw the coin?” “No, I throw the coin.” “So you did not touch him. And if you don’t touch him you don’t meet him.”

These words about the poor can be applied to all of our relationships. Pope Francis challenges us to have a true “encounter” — encuentro in Spanish — with the people who are part of our daily lives. Do I know what is going on in the lives of the people in my office? Do I take time to truly share life with my children? Do I know what is weighing on my spouse’s heart? As relational beings, all persons long for someone to walk beside them, to share the joys and sorrows, dreams and fears, triumphs and hardships that make up life. But today, there is a “profound poverty of relationships” as Pope Francis said in his message on the 2014 World Day of Peace. We are too busy pursuing our own projects and entertaining ourselves on screens to see the real faces of the people in our lives.

Instead of personal encounter — a true sharing of life together — most of our interactions are reduced to getting the information we need from a coworker, updating our boss on our projects, successfully getting the kids to pick up their toys, and texting our spouse about what time we will be home. There is much communication between people in this flurry of activity, but little communio, few opportunities to “encounter” each other personally.

A Deeper Poverty

This is why Blessed Mother Teresa said that some of the greatest poverty in the world is in the prosperous West. It is not a material poverty, but a deeper one — a poverty of friendship, love, and care. Her Missionary of Charity sisters often describe how it is much harder to serve the poor in the United States, for example, than the poor in India. One sister in Calcutta told me, “With the poor here in India, we can help satisfy their hunger. We can give them food. But many people in the United States have a hunger that is not as easy to fill: they hunger for love — the love of their parents, their brother or sister, their spouse.”

Mother Teresa once described this kind of poverty of relationships when she visited a nursing home where children send their elderly parents.

I saw in that home they had everything, beautiful things, but everybody was looking towards the door. And I did not see a single one with their smile on their face. And I turned to the Sister and I asked: How is that? How is it that the people they have everything here, why are they all looking towards the door, why are they not smiling?… And she said: This is nearly every day, they are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten.

We don’t have to turn far to encounter the poor: “That poverty comes right there in our own home, in someone who does not feel loved. Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried, and these are difficult days for everybody. Are we there, are we there to receive them?” That’s why Mother Teresa often said, “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”

Social Media

The Holy Father’s call to build a culture of encuentro challenges us to consider the impact of technology and social media on our ability to give the best of ourselves to the people around us. Pope Francis is particularly concerned that in our hyper-connected world we often interact with screens more than with people. In The joy of the Gospel, he quotes Pope Paul V’s observation that “technological society has succeeded in multiplying occasions of pleasure, yet has found it very difficult to engender joy.”

This modern inward turn leaves us, like Matthew’s friends in the tax collector’s office, looking down — not at our money, but at our mobile devices, trapped in self-interest.

How often does your smart phone, for example, interrupt conversation with your family, friends, or colleagues? And how much does the time spent communicating on screens prevent you from giving the best of yourself to the people around you? The pope particularly challenges those who like to hide behind technology for communication rather than converse in a more personal manner with others — “those who want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command” (EG 88).

Text messaging and social media, for example, give us a sense of control in our interactions with others. We can have time to process how to respond to someone, shape our message, and project a certain image of ourselves. We also can protect ourselves from awkward moments or conflict with others. But to truly encounter another person, we can’t turn them on and off “on command.” And we can’t hide behind screens. We must walk with them closely in real time. “The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others,” Pope Francis says, “with their physical presence, which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy, which infects us in our close and continuous interaction” (EG 88).

Encuentro at Home

Pope Francis’ call for encuentro also challenges parents to think about how they interact with their own children. I’ve heard many fathers admit that sometimes they come home from work and relate to their children more like a military captain marshaling the troops to finish their homework, practice their music, pick up their toys, get their pajamas on, brush their teeth, and get to bed on time. When I fall into a “get-it-done” mode like this, I might successfully get the kids to accomplish their evening responsibilities, but I have to ask myself, “Am I any closer to them at the end of the night?” There may be plenty of interaction, but if there is not a true sharing of life, not much encuentro, we end up relating to our children more like Captain von Trapp from The Sound of Music than a father who is personally involved in their lives.

Pope Francis’ teaching challenges all parents to make sure we are not just giving our children a good house, a good education, and good activities, but even more, that we are giving ourselves to them — truly encountering them personally day-to-day. In a world where fathers often don’t give the best of themselves to their children because they are too busy pouring their lives into their work and career, Pope Francis challenges them to “waste time” with their children. His message to fathers on the Solemnity of St. Joseph makes a similar point — one that can be applied to mothers just as well — “Be very close to your children. They need you, your presence, to be there, your love!”

The pope’s message also challenges us to examine our marriages. Do we truly encounter our spouse day-to-day? Do we take time to know what is really going on in his or her heart? I wrote this chapter on encounter the week after my wife gave birth to our seventh child. I took several days off of work to be at home and help manage the household while my wife was resting in bed and taking care of our newborn. Having to handle all the responsibilities at home made me appreciate even more all that my wife does for our family! I did the cooking and the laundry and took care of the children, driving them to their various music lessons and practices so that my wife could recover and focus on the baby. I brought meals to her, went to the store for her, brought her medicines, filled her water bottle, brought her the mail — basically, I tried to respond to whatever needs or requests she had.

In those busy days, I initially thought I was serving my wife well. But one night, when the kids were down and I was writing this very chapter about encuentro, Pope Francis’ words made me realize how much I was falling short of the mark. I could write about encuentro, but I wasn’t living it as well as I should! It hit me when I brought Beth some food, asked her how she was doing, and she said, “I’m lonely.” My wife needed more than food, drink, laundry, flowers, medicine, and baby diapers. She needed me. She just needed some adult conversation and time to connect with her husband. This was a wake-up call for me. I don’t want to simply rush around providing acts of service for my wife; I also want to take time for that personal connection with her.

Many things can get in the way of that connection in a marriage, whether problems with a child, financial troubles, health issues, an unresolved conflict in the marriage relationship, pressures at work, or the hectic weeks after welcoming a newborn. But even amid the trials of life, spouses must remember they are not coworkers tackling projects and problems together. They are two who have become one in Christ, and they need to regularly take time for the personal encounter with each other that deepens that unity.

Pope Francis calls us to build a culture of encounter in our daily lives, but we must do this intentionally. “What Jesus teaches us first of all is to meet each other, and in meeting to offer each other help. We must know how to meet each other. We must build, create, construct a culture of encounter. How many differences, how many problems in the family there always are! Problems in the neighborhood, problems at work, problems everywhere,” he said. We need to build “the culture of encounter,” which is simply about taking time to go out of ourselves and truly “meet” the other person.

By Edward Sri
Photo by Etactics Inc on Unsplash