Dom Pedro Casaldaliga from Brazil said: “We must keep repeating it: without the poor there is no salvation, without the poor there is no church, without the poor there is no gospel”
Compassionate Action
Like Edmund, we find Jesus in:
- Overcoming ego to live a life of outward-turned self-giving love, which is the life of God
- Abandoning the temple and living out mission on the road, out in the street, in the community, deliberately locating himself on the margins, among the excluded and unloved.
- Committed to encounters in which he is moved by compassion to heal, support, feed, forgive, restore, make whole ….. responding to suffering which is invisible and inconvenient to others.
- Making himself present especially to the most damaged and rejected
- Setting the test of our humanity: whatever we do, or fail to do, to and for a fellow human being with a call on our compassion, we do or fail to do for HIM.
For our Edmund Rice Network this means:
- Accepting the challenge to step outside our comfort zones in respectful service of our brothers and sisters, especially those made poor
- Being proactive, as individuals or as members of a group with an agreed ministry, in actions of outreach and justice
- A willingness to engage in the radical critique of contemporary social values, policies and practices
- Making a personal commitment to be involved in or support an ERN project at home or abroad
- Being advocates for those who have no voice or whose voice is suppressed or ignored
- Within our immediate family, neighbourhood or place of employment to show a readiness to take an extra step for others
Timirí 