QUOTATION: The Poor

Those who cannot see the face of Christ in the poor are atheists indeed. 

--Dorothy Day

QUOTATION: Finding the Poor

I want you to go and find the poor in your homes. Above all, your love has to start there. I want you to be the good news to those around you. I want you to be concerned about your next-door neighbour. Do you know who your neighbour is?

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, No Greater Love

QUOTATION: The Poor

We talk much about the poor, but very little to the poor.

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Where There is Love, There is God, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ed.

QUOTATION: The Poor

Today is it very fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is very unfashionable to talk with them.

--Mother Teresa

QUOTATION: Poverty

No one should commend poverty, save the poor.

--St. Bernard, Sermons

QUOTATION: Seeing Christ

If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: The Treasure of the Church

The blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned and widowed persons - these are the treasure of the Church.

--St. Lawrence

QUOTATION: The Poor

We must think of the poor not as a problem to be solved, but as people with potential to be unleashed.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: The Rich and The Poor

The poor need the rich to get them out of poverty, but the rich need the poor to get them out of hell.

--Fr. Robert Barron

QUOTATION: Against Class Warfare

The rich exist for the sake of the poor. The poor exist for the salvation of the rich.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: Helping the Poor

Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell. Period. There’s just no doubt about it. That has to be a foundational concern of Catholics and of all Christians. But Jesus didn’t say the government has to take care of them, or that we have to pay taxes to take care of them. Those are prudential judgments.

--Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

QUOTATION: For God to Hear Our Prayers

If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it.

--St. Thomas of Villanova

QUOTATION: Service to the Poor

It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.

--St. Vincent de Paul

QUOTATION: The Vulnerable

Every child with Down syndrome, every adult with special needs — in fact, every unwanted unborn child, every person who is poor, weak, abandoned, or homeless — is an icon of God’s face and a vessel of his love. How we treat these persons — whether we revere them and welcome them or throw them away in distaste — shows what we really believe about human dignity, both as individuals and as a nation.

-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput