We Drink from Our Own Wells Quotes

“As Teresa of Avila says, “God does not give himself entirely to us, unless we give ourselves entirely to God.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“Poverty means death,” Gustavo writes. This death, however, is not only physical but mental and cultural as well. It refers to the destruction of individual persons, peoples, cultures, and traditions.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“True love exists only among equals, “for love effects a likeness between the lover and the object loved.”23 And this supposes an ability to approach others and respect their sensitivities.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“The cowardice that keeps silent in the face of the sufferings of the poor and that offers any number of adroit justifications represents an especially serious failure of Latin American Christians.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“Lord, I do not attempt to comprehend Your sublimity, because my intellect is not at all equal to such a task. But I yearn to understand some measure of Your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe but I believe in order to understand. For I believe even this: that I shall not understand unless I believe.3”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“Here the church, like every human being, is faced with the choice that is most fundamental for its faith: to be on the side of life or on the side of death. We see very clearly that on this point no neutrality is possible. Either we serve the life of the Salvadoran people or we connive in their death. Here, too, is the historical mediation of what is most fundamental in the Christian faith: either we believe in a God of life or we serve the idols of death” (Address at Louvain, Feb. 2, 1980; in SVF, p. 373).”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“There is no authentic evangelization that is not accompanied by action in behalf of the poor.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“So true is this that if we do not respond to the demands of the present, because we do not know in advance whither we may be led, we are simply refusing to hear the call of Jesus Christ. We are refusing to open to him when he knocks on the door and invites us to sup with him.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“This is what many Christians are now learning in Latin America. To be followers of Jesus requires that they walk with and be committed to the poor; when they do, they experience an encounter with the Lord who is simultaneously revealed and hidden in the faces of the poor (see Matt. 25:31–46, and the fine commentary in PD, nos. 31–39).”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“There is a style of life that gives a distinctive personality to one manner of being a Christian. This manner is in fact a limited manner, for no spirituality can claim to be the way to be a Christian. It is simply one way among others.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“Flesh and spirit are not juxtaposed domains, but are principles of activity that give rise to processes that in all their manifestations intermesh in the life of the Christian.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People

“The recovery must rather be—let me repeat—the result of an effort to be faithful, in both prayer and concrete commitments, to the will of the Lord in the midst of the poor.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People