charity

We very often fail to think as carefully about helping others as we could, mistakenly believing that applying data and rationality to a charitable endeavor robs the act of virtue. And that means we pass up opportunities to make a tremendous difference.

Vitarags [the enlightened one] do not have a desire for giving or receiving charity. They are in the state of __huddh upyog_ [pure awareness of pure soul].

It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.

Our concern for victims is the secular mask of Christian love.

He is a Christian, and believes charity begins at home. And often it remains there.

Only by having a sense of history's trajectory (even if one does not believe in Parousia) can one love earthly reality and believe__ith charity__hat there is still room for Hope.

It's through the cross that we reach the resurrection. We should be absolutely sure of this truth, and we should keep this cross hidden and not place it on the shoulders of others. It is our cross we have to carry. It is the one God has given us to go through into His resurrection. This is the one we should keep hidden.But there are crosses and crosses, some of our own making. These we should immediately discard. Some permitted by God for our sanctification. These we can share for they are also for the sanctification of others. True, we can help to carry other people's crosses and they can help to carry our crosses, but the operative word is "hidden."The Lord said, "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men," and "When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Mt 6:16-18)Our very hiddenness becomes a light if we do not complain, if we carry our cross manfully, ready to help in the carrying of other people's crosses. Then we become a light to our neighbour's feet because we become an icon of Christ__hining!

If he had given away anything else, he would have been charged with indecent exposure.

We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ's hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world.

One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.

If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God__.

The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up and doing that every day?

You really want to see change?Start by donating one dollar to a charity

What is life? Life is living in this moment, experiencing and experimenting but experience isn__ life. Life is reflecting and meditating but reflection isn__ life. Life is helping and guiding but philanthropy isn__ life. Life is eating and drinking but food isn__ life. Life is reading and dancing but art isn__ life. Life is kissing and pleasuring but sex isn__ life. Life is winning and losing but competition isn__ life. Life is loving and caring but love isn__ life. Life is birthing and nurturing but children aren__ life. Life is letting go and surrendering but death isn__ life. Life is all these things but all these things aren__ life. Life is always more.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.