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The Chrisitan is not worthy of his name unless he gives from his possessions, his time, or at least his concern in order to help those less fortunate than himself. The sacrifice must be real, not just a gesture of lordly paternalism which inflates his own ego while patronizing ‘the poor.’ The sharing of material goods must also be a sharing of the heart, a recognition of common misery and poverty and brotherhood in Christ. Such charity is impossible without an interior poverty of spirit which identifies us with the unfortunate, the underprivileged, the dispossessed. In some cases this can and should go to the extent of leaving all that we have in order to share the lot of the unfortunate.
by Thomas Merton in Life and Holiness on page 89.
