The poor we see every day, the stories about deportation, torture, and murder we hear every day, and the undernourished children we touch every day, reveal to us the suffering Christ has hidden within us. When we allow this image of the suffering Christ within us to grow to its full maturity, then ministry to the poor and oppressed becomes a real possibility; because then we can indeed hear, see, and touch him within us as well as among us. . . . Once we have seen the suffering Christ within us, we will see him wherever we see people in pain. Once we have seen the suffering Christ among us, we will recognize him in our innermost self. Thus we come to experience that the first commandment, to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, resembles indeed the second: “You must love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39–40).
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