“If I do not open the door of my heart to the poor, then that door remains closed for God too. And this is terrible!”, warned Pope Francis, summing up in these words the meaning of the second part of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. “Earlier on, he denied him even the leftovers from his table, and now he would like Lazarus to bring him something to drink! He still believes he can claim the rights of his previous social status!”. “But the situation is reversed here: the relationship between the rich man and Lazarus has changed”, the Pope explained during today’s audience. “Abraham’s refusal to grant” the rich man’s request “gives us the key to understanding the whole story: he explains that good and evil have been distributed to compensate earthly injustice, and that the door that separated the rich from the poor in life has been transformed into a deep abyss”. In other words, “as long as Lazarus was lying in front of his house, the rich man had a chance of salvation – he could have opened the door and helped Lazarus -, but now that they are both dead, the situation has become irreparable”. “Although God is not mentioned directly, the parable is a warning”, Pope Francis remarked: “God’s mercy for us is closely connected to our mercy for our neighbour; when we show no mercy, then God’s mercy finds no place in our closed hearts, it cannot enter. If I do not open the door of my heart to the poor, then that door remains closed for God too. And this is terrible!”.