Feeding our brother

We are our brother's keeper. Whatever we have beyond our own needs belongs to the poor. If we sow sparingly we will reap sparingly. And it is sad but true that we must give far more than bread, than shelter.... If we do give in this way, then the increase comes. There will be enough. Somehow we will survive; "The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruze of oil be diminished," for all our giving away the last bit of substance we have. At the same time we must often be settling down happily to the cornmeal cakes, the last bit of food in the house, before the miracle of the increase comes about. Any large family knows these things -- that somehow everything works out. It works out naturally and it works out religiously.
Dorothy DayLoaves and Fishes

Sufficiency

Accepting and living by sufficiency rather than excess offers a return to what is, culturally speaking, the human home: the ancient order of family, community, good work and good life; to a reverence for excellence of craftsmanship; to a true materialism that does not just care about things but cares for them; to communities worth spending a lifetime in.

Alan Durning"How Much is Enough?" in Simpler Living, Compassionate Life

Each like the other

“The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.

But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?

Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.

― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

Community working

Community gets built by working together on things, whether that means joining together as a community to fight a closing school, working side by side in a community garden, joining forces to create a community food pantry, or working together at a fundraiser for a family that needs help paying medical bills, we get to know each other and appreciate each other more if we work together.

Bill Boerman-Cornell
"Ten ways to be a better Christian community" in catapult magazine

Kinship

These unjust inequalities, these masses living in misery who cry out to heaven are a sign of our anti-Christianity.  They are declaring before God that we believe more in the things of the earth than in the covenant of love that we have signed with him, and that because of our covenant with God, all human beings should consider themselves brothers and sisters.... Human beings are more children of God when they become more brotherly or sisterly to other human beings, and less children of God when they feel less kinship with their neighbours. (September 18, 1977)

Oscar Romero
Through the Year with Oscar Romero

Enormous pockets

We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Members of Christ

If you are in class, recognize one another; if you are in the store, recognize one another; if you are in the housing estate, recognize one another; if you are in the parish, recognize one another: you are members of one another if you are members of Christ. This is the most revolutionary sentence that can be expressed: "you are members of one another." ... And this recognizing one another ... is witness to Christ. This is the first expression of our yearning for Christ.

- Luigi Giussani, Italian Catholic priest and founder of the Communion and Liberation movement of the Catholic Church.

Photo: Traces Magazine, March 2005