Holiness is doing God's will with a smile.

She lived almost fifty years of her life completely dedicated to the care of the poor and the marginalized. Astonishingly, for those nearly fifty years she identified completely with the poor she served by her own experience of being seemingly unwanted and unloved by God. In a mystical way — through this painful interior "darkness" — she tasted their greatest poverty of being "unwanted, unloved, and uncared for."

Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign. ... You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth.

Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.

If we are Christians, we must look like Christ - this is my deep conviction.

We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.

I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: My son did this to me. I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: I forgive my son. Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand.