Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor

My dearest Father Gary, I cannot adequately put into words what your friendship has meant to me over the past few years. You have been my steady rock in the raging storm. You’ve been the father to me that I always wished for when I was growing up. You’ve given so much, and I know you’ve got so much more to give. Your ministry has just begun. When t

I thought later that Frank’s hunt is for the affirmation of movements inside of him that are constantly struggling to assert themselves: love, meaning, truth, and the notion that God is stronger than the voices that assail him. I believe his search is guided by the heart of God expressing a longing for Frank and for his wholeness.

What person who does what this woman does has not been there? How I admire them and cherish them. I see them each day, serving in a variety of ways, dealing with the heartbreaking realities of the poor: frustration; violent transference; physical and mental sickness; rejection; police harassment; loneliness; hunger for food, friendship, and purpose

From this shock jock’s viewpoint, it is a crime to be poor and homeless. The moral crime is that people like this jerk have no interest in finding out anything about the human being who stands on the corner, smelling and hungry. Were he to meet one such person and hear that individual’s story, he might understand the beating heart before him and th

It is in such moments that I lose track of what is mental illness and what is the power of the Spirit working through a person. I have found that the spirit of piety in the mentally ill is stronger and more devotional and more other-oriented than that of much of formal religious life.

Before we left, he suddenly asked if we would pray with him, and so we sat in that crappy little room, hand in hand, Mary Sue and Robert seated on his bed and me in a chair facing them. We lit the place up. It was a positive visit. It is clear that he trusts the two of us.

Jesus was present to her, but the healing she wanted was going to be accomplished in a way that neither one of us would understand.

In that room, there were no obstacles to the grace of God or to the power of a human being to realize himself.

He wanted to express his gratitude for what I had done, for my being with him in his time of crisis.