“You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That’s how prayer works.” — Pope Francis
Pope Francis taught that feeding hungry people and caring for those in need were part of a Catholic’s relationship with God. His call for “a poor Church for the poor” placed responsibility for marginalized people at the heart of his papacy.
In a 2016 general audience, he discussed the corporal works of mercy, including “feed the hungry” and “give drink to the thirsty.” Meeting those needs, he explained, was bound up with how people encounter God.
He also drew on the Gospel account of a hungry crowd. When the disciples wanted to send the people away, Jesus told them, “You give them something to eat.” Francis used the passage to urge people to accept responsibility for others and share what they had, trusting God to multiply it.
In 2019, he brought that same obligation into his explanation of the Our Father. The prayer asks for “our” daily bread, making other people’s hunger a concern for everyone praying it.
Francis, who led the Catholic Church from March 13, 2013, until his death on April 21, 2025, repeatedly connected faith with the treatment of people who were poor, weak or hungry.
He returned to Matthew 25’s account of judgment and Jesus’ words: “I was hungry and you gave me food…”
That thread runs straight through the line at the top. For Francis, prayer that stopped at words left the work undone, and the words have stayed with people because they close the gap between what you ask God for and what you do about it.