“He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God is poor in spirit”

“Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it: nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.”

“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.”

“The child understood vaguely that in taking up literature, he had entered a domain where he could rely on nothing beyond himself. ”

“For Ragamuffins, God's name is Mercy. We see our darkness as a prized possession because it drives us into the heart of God. Without mercy our darkness would plunge us into despair - for some, self-destruction. Time alone with God reveals the unfathomable depths of the poverty of the spirit. We are so poor that even our poverty is not our own: It belongs to the mysterium tremendum of a loving God.”

“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”