Gospel (Mt 25,31-46) - At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: «When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the peoples will be gathered before him. He will separate one from the other, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right: "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you dressed me, sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Then the righteous will answer him: «Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When have we ever seen you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and clothed you? When have we ever seen you sick or in prison and come to visit you? And the king will answer them: "Truly I say to you, whatever you did to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me." Then he will also say to those on the left: «Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, because I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat, I was thirsty and I did not you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you didn't welcome me, naked and you didn't clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn't visit me." They too will then answer: "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we did not serve you?". Then he will answer them: "Truly I say to you, whatever you did not do to one of the least of these, you did not do to me." And they will go away: these to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

This first Monday of Lent opens with the Gospel of the end of times, the day of final judgement. The scene is grandiose: Jesus, in his royal function, is sitting on the throne with "all the angels". In front of him, as if in an immense scenario, "all the peoples" are gathered. There is only one division between them: the relationship that each one had with the Son of Man present in every poor person. The judge himself, in fact, presents himself as the thirsty, the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink" . The dialogue between the king and the interlocutors of the two groups brings this disconcerting aspect into focus: the glorious judge of the end of times, who all the interlocutors recognize as "Lord", had the face of that beggar who asked for alms, of that the elderly man abandoned in the chronic hospital, of those foreigners who knock on our doors and who are often rejected, of those prisoners who are so little visited. The repetition of the six situations of poverty (they are repeated four times, in a few verses), with the respective list of works given or denied, perhaps indicates the frequent repetition of such situations in everyday life, everywhere in the world. world. This Gospel comes to tell us that the decisive confrontation (decisive because we will be judged definitively on this) between man and God does not take place in a context of heroic and extraordinary gestures, but rather in everyday encounters, in offering help to those he needs it, in giving food and drink to those who are hungry and thirsty, in welcoming and protecting those who are abandoned. Jesus' identification with the poor - he also calls them his brothers - does not depend on their moral or spiritual qualities; Jesus does not identify only with the good and honest poor. The poor are poor and that's it. As such, in them we encounter Jesus. It is an objective identity; they represent the Lord because they are poor, small, weak. After all, Jesus himself became poor and weak. It is here, in the streets of the world, that the last judgment takes place. And the poor will be our true advocates. It is good to ask ourselves if we and our communities live this daily dimension of charity: if we are next to them or, instead, on the side of those who are annoyed by their presence. Pope Francis, well aware that we will all be judged from here, reminds us of an extraordinary truth: "We touch the flesh of Jesus by touching that of the poor". It is one of the most beautiful and shocking truths of the Gospel, which we Christians are called to live and bear witness to.