Put on light-coloured clothes and some perfume, take care of your body and do everything you can to fight against the forces of darkness. It is not an easy struggle, but it is worthwhile.

If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.

Our danger is to think that happiness will come from outside of us, from the things we possess or the power of our group, and not from within us, from the inner sanctuary of our being.

The people with the best sense of what is essential to a community, of what gives and maintains its spirit, are often doing very humble, manual tasks. It is often the poorest person - the one who has a handica[p, is] ill or old - who is the most prophetic. People who carry responsibility must be close to them and know what they think, because it is often they who are free enough to see with the greatest clarity the needs, beauty and pain of the community.

The person in misery does not need a look that judges and criticizes but a comforting presence that brings peace and hope and life and says: 'you are a human person: important, mysterious, infinitely precious, what you have to say is important because it flows from a humn person; in you there are those seeds of the infinite, those germs of love... of beauty which must rise from the earth of your misery so humanity be fulfilled. If you do not rise then something will be missing... Rise again because we all need you... be loved beloved.'

To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.

Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.