It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you — try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God’s will yourself!

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]

Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 14 (1949)