Joseph F. Girzone

“Carlo had learned much from his pilgrimage-retreat, and the most important of his insights was the realization that it is essential to make Jesus the focus of the church's life and not the institution, which unfortunately had been the emphasis for the last several centuries. The church is merely the vehicle for bringing Jesus to the world. Carlo realized that the countries of Europe have turned secular mostly because the people are tired of hearing about church. They hunger for spirituality and intimacy with God, and all we give them is church. Carlo was determined to make Jesus real again for the people, knowing from his own experience that when he preached Jesus to the people, it changed their lives.”

“The world needs to understand Jesus' teaching on forgiveness, and when it does, the world will find its way to peace.”

“I have finally come to realize why Jesus has such a passionate love, yes, a passionate love for the poor and the outcasts. He could see clearly how an arrogant and self-righteous society had stripped millions of his poor of their dignity and pride as God's children and reduced them, even in their own eyes, to nothing more than unwanted trash. Now I understand why he took pride in identifying himself as the Good Shepherd and homeless himself, because he himself was treated by the leaders of his own people as trash to be eliminated.”

“I think I know now why Jesus had such a tender spot in his heart for the poor. It takes great faith and simplicity of spirit to be poor and not despair. It takes enormous courage to decide to keep on living. The homeless are remarkable people. Their very life is a prayer -- desperate, silent, unspoken pleading with God to keep them alive. And by some miracle, no, not one miracle, but by a continuous chain of miracles all day long and all night, they do stay alive, especially on freezing cold days and nights.”

“I'll tell you, I now know why Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd. It was because he had such a deep and beautiful feeling of love for people like you, and among all the people he knew in Palestine, they were the ones he loved and worried about the most. And he made treatment of you and those like you the basis for how he will judge people when they die. He will say to people who are kind to you, 'Come, blessed of my Father, into the kingdom of heaven, because when I was homeless and hungry and naked and ill and in prison, you cared for me. As long as you did this for the least among you, you did it to me. So come into my Father's home, and those who are not kind to you, God will give them a hard time, a very hard time.”

“You probably know more about life, real life, than most people. You never really know what life is all about until you have suffered and been humbled and beaten down by life. Then it all of a sudden becomes very real. Jesus did not understand what life was going to be like for him, and he was God, until he went off on his own. He also was one of us, a homeless beggar with nowhere to lay his head.”

“Carlo felt sad losing the companionship of his new friends and thought about how fortunate Americans were to have immigrants in ever-increasing numbers blessing their country with their presence. He realized that as hard-working and industrious as they are, they would in time raise the spiritual level throughout the whole country by sharing their deep faith, their gentle, unselfish spirit, and their beautiful family life.”

“I am a priest, and while I listened to your homily this morning, I realized that I have not been the good shepherd I thought I was. I have never allowed myself to deal with faults in the church and always defended it against the complaints of people. Your homily made me realize that people's complaints are often a plea for help, an expression of their caring and their craving for greater intimacy with God. These pleas fell on my deaf ears, and I failed to nourish them. The financially poor are not the only people who are poor. Spiritual poverty is even more painful, and I have failed to recognize that in my people. This I humbly confess.”

“For the first time he began to understand why Jesus had such compassion for the poor. Jesus could identify with them because they were treated with the same contempt as the religious officials and the law-obsessed hypocrites treated him.”

“He was one of those souls destined by God to understand just how little and insignificant they are, even though divine love makes them important to God. But they never have the joy of knowing that they are important. Society will always prevent that. They are just unwanted nuisances pricking the consciences of people who wish they would just disappear.”

“I think most decent people would be horrified at what happens today, even in our enlightened country. There are still mean, self-righteous Pharisees, who have a sick need to punish others whose troubled lives they can never begin to understand, much less feel compassion for.”