The language of elitism smells bad! It is not healthy to believe that we are the only ones to have captured truth and even less healthy to condemn others.

The poor are always prophetic. As true prophets always point out, they reveal God’s design. That is why we should take time to listen to them. And that means staying near them, because they speak quietly and infrequently; they are afraid to speak out, they lack confidence in themselves because they have been broken and oppressed. But if we listen to them, they will bring us back to the essential.

Children can then quickly discover that there is such a thing called truth; that they are not living in a chaotic world that is hypocritical, filled with only lies and pretense. Parents who admit to their children that they have been unjustly angry and ask for forgiveness are naming something: they are admitting that they are not perfect. Words and life can come together: the word can indeed become flesh.

That is the fundamental question; how to trust that she has a heart and that she can, little by little, receive love, be transformed by love, and then give love.

The next chapter is about belonging: the essential need we have to be and to share with others. The human heart is a place of freedom. We can be obliged to follow the law but not to love, because “true love casts out fear.” Our society grows in justice and peace as we allow energies of love and concern for all to rise up in ourselves.

Sometimes it is easier to hear the cries of poor people who are far away than it is to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters in our own community. There is nothing very splendid in responding to the cry of the person who is with us day after day and who gets on our nerves. Perhaps too we can only respond to the cries of others when we have recognized and accepted the cry of our own pain.

Look at your own poverty welcome it cherish it don’t be afraid share your death because thus you will share your love and your life.

People seem to forget that there is a huge difference between the peace which is a gift of God and passes all understanding, and peace in the psychological sense. If we are living in a dream or illusion, or have certain psychological blocks, we should not be surprised that we become troubled when someone brings us face-to-face with reality. Sometimes we have to lose psychological peace before we can live in true peace.

The friend of time doesn’t spend all day saying: ‘I haven’t got time.’ He doesn’t fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

A group is the manifestation of this need to belong. A group can, however, close in on itself, believing that it is superior to others. But my vision is that belonging should be at the heart of a fundamental discovery: that we all belong to a common humanity, the human race. We may be rooted in a specific family and culture but we come to this earth to open up to others, to serve them and receive the gifts they bring to us, as well as to all of humanity.