hough I preach the sacred value of human life, if I sit on my hands and watch the oppression of my people, I am a hypocrite.
Though I approve the goals of human liberation and profess love for freedom, if I do not act on this love, it is worthless.
Though I think I can tell which way the wind is blowing, if I let the moment to act pass me by, I betray the imperative to love.
The people have suffered long, charity serves barely to keep them alive.
Charity by itself defuses the will of the people to act.
Love is not defined from a book or a tradition – it does not test in its own abstract goodness, it is shaped by the concrete needs of the people.True love abhors evil; it rejoices in the struggle for the good.
On the path to triumph, love can bear all things, will hope all things; it will not surrender.
Our need for justice and human dignity is as dear as life itself; if there are political slogans they will fade away; if there are exploitative economic systems they shall crumble and be changed.
For humankind cannot live by slogans alone.
Human’s right to freedom and dignity is a gift from God, thus when people’s together demand liberation, that which oppresses shall give way.
For before I knew what it meant to have dignity, I could neither see clearly nor love freely. But when I began to struggle, I discovered the true meaning of Love.
When we were slaves, we spoke as slaves, we understood as slaves, we thought as slaves, but as we became free, we cast off all the chains of servitude.
So Faith, Love and Hope must abide, these three: but without freedom and dignity they remain hollow shadows.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)