Quotes about Poverty

There is nothing more sickening than talking about poverty over a fancy dinner.

Dom Helder Camara, a twentieth-century bishop in Brazil, said, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist.

After all, what is crazier: one person owning the same amount of money as the combined economies of twenty-three countries, or suggesting that if we shared, there would be enough for everyone?

It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. . . Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love, genuine relationships.

And in a very special way, as Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, in the least of these, we find Jesus in disguise. Perhaps we are just as likely to encounter God over the dinner table or in the slums or in the streets as in a giant auditorium. Of course, suggesting that God doesn't need these million-dollar megacathedrals is the sort of thing that gets you in big trouble.

Church father Ignatius said that if our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy.

Jesus never says to the poor, 'Come find the church,' but he says to those of us in the church, 'Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,' Jesus in his disguises.

The worlds of poverty and wealth collided, and I guess I felt a little dose of what the experts call culture shock. According to Mother Teresa, it is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all— loneliness. So perhaps I was still among the poorest of the poor, but these poor folks had some cash!

When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." Charity

I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end.

People are poor not just because of their sins; they are poor because of our sins (and people are rich because of our sins). On the wall of New Jerusalem is a sign that reads, "We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.

According to Mother Teresa, it is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all—loneliness. So perhaps I was still among the poorest of the poor, but these poor folks had some cash!