Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale, sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence because he brought to mind all the pale, sad, sickly children in Italy that same night who needed haircuts and needed shoes and socks.

Yossarian was moved by such intense pity for his poverty that he wanted to smash his pale. sad, sickly face with his fist and knock him out of existence

Anytime I start finding it difficult to stay positive about what I am doing, it helps me tremendously to remember that I am serving Christ. Whatever

Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself,Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

Worship that does not lead to neighborly compassion and justice cannot be faithful worship of YHWH. The offer is a phony Sabbath!

The crowd always has a stake in pretending that the "abnormal" (in this case, being blind and begging) is "normal," for such a recharacterization of the abnormal as normal precludes some from full socioeconomic, political functioning.

The church has a huge stake in breaking the silence, because the God of the Bible characteristically appears at the margins of established power arrangements, whether theological or socioeconomic and political.

Save us, Lord, from a religion that ignores the cries of the exploited and oppressed. Lead us into a deeper faith that challenges injustice and makes the sacrifices that must be made to build a society that is ever more truly human. Amen.

Quite clearly, the one thing the dominant culture cannot tolerate or co-opt is compassion, the ability to stand in solidarity with the victims of the present order. It can manage charity and good intentions, but it has no way to resist solidarity with pain or grief. So

Every true work is not done to the poor. Every true work is done to Me.

One hidden act of kindness is worth more than all the burial mounds of rhetoric, all the mumbling and fumbling and tardiness of Christians so preoccupied with cultivating their prayer lives that they cannot hear the anguished cry of the child in the barrio.

Not satisfied with endlessly pulling drowning men from the torrents rushing past, Day went upstream to see who was throwing the poor bastards into the water in the first place—and