Throwing the pebble in the pond

What we would like to do is change the world - make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute - the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words - we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbour, to love our enemy as our friend.

Dorothy Day

By Little and By Little

Perfect Christianity

This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbours.

John Chrysostom

"Homily 25" in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume XII

Your neighbour's good

The more someone rejoices over his neighbour's good, the more he shares in it. So if you want to have a share in the good of all, rejoice in the good of all. Make the good of others your own if it pleases you, and make the evil of others your care if it displeases you. That is the way of salvation: that you rejoice over your neighbour's good and grieve over his evil, and think good of others and evil of yourself, and honor others and despise yourself.

Brother Gilesqtd. in The Little Flowers of Saint Francis

Being present

The church, as it exists within the wide range of individual vocations in every sphere of social life (commerce, philanthropy, education, etc.), must be present in the world in ways that work toward the constructive subversion of all frameworks of social life that are incompatible with the shalom for which we were made and to which we are called. As a natural expression of its passion to honour God in all things and to love our neighbour as ourselves, the church and its people will challenge all structures that dishonour God, dehumanize people, and neglect or do harm to the creation.

James Davison Hunter
To Change the World

Denying and affirming

Do I deny the resurrection?  Okay, this is time to fess up.  Yes.  I do.  Of course I do.  Everyone who knows me knows I deny the resurrection.  And I do deny the resurrection every time I do not serve my neighbour, every time I walk away from people who are poor.  I deny the resurrection every time I participate in an unjust system.  And I affirm the resurrection every now and again when I stand up for those who are on their knees.  I affirm the resurrection when I cry out for those people who have had their tongues torn out, when I weep for those people who have no more tears to shed.

Peter Rollins
Poets, Prophets and Preachers conference