Taking their cue from the Council, Christians can engage with the modern world and enter into a constructive dialogue with it. Like the Good Samaritan, they can also come to the aid of suffering man, tending the wounds that he bears at the beginning of this twenty-first century. Care for the needy is incomparably more important than polemics and denunciations concerning, for example, the role of the Enlightenment in paving the way for the great historical catastrophes of the twentieth century. The spirit of the Gospel is seen primarily in this willingness to offer fraternal help to those in need. – St. John Paul the Great, Memory and Identity
…give and it will give given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back. – Luke 6:38
We must denounce those who squander the earth’s riches, provoking inequalities that cry out to heaven. For example, it is impossible to remain silent before the ‘distressing images of huge camps throughout the world of displaced persons and refugees, who are living in makeshift conditions in order to escape a worse fate, yet are still in dire need. Are these human beings not our brothers and sisters? Do their children not come into the world with the same legitimate expectations of happiness as other children?’ The Lord Jesus, the bread of eternal life, spurs us to be mindful of the situations of extreme poverty in which a great part of humanity still lives: these are situations for which human beings bear a clear and disquieting responsibility. Indeed, ‘on the basis of available statistical data, it can be said that less than half of the huge sums spent worldwide on armaments would be more than sufficient to liberate the immense masses of the poor from destitution. This challenges humanity’s conscience.’ – Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis
Whoever fails to love their neighbor, fails to love You, my Lord, since we see You showed the very great love You have for the children of Adam by shedding so much blood. – St. Teresa of Avila
Is it not better to have to answer for mercy than for severity?… Do you seek thereby the character of sanctity? Be strict in ordering your own life, in that of others lenient; let men hear of you as enjoining little, and performing much. – St. Thomas Aquinas as quoted in Sermon in a Sentence, Volume 5
And since God’s reputation is hopelessly linked to His followers’ behavior, I suspect He wouldn’t be stuck with His current rap if we spent our time loving others and stocking their cabinets. – Jen Hatmaker, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess
Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs. The modern age, particularly from the nineteenth century on, has been dominated by various versions of a philosophy of progress whose most radical form is Marxism. Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future – a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programs. – Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est
From 15 to 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself. At that age you don’t look for what is hidden. It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity. – Flannery O’Connor, from a letter
Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs. – St. John Chrysostom
Living Differently 