Famous quotes, poems and phrases of Don Tonino Bello, the Catholic bishop and writer who claimed that God speaks to us through the poor we meet and, present in the hearts of all, inspires gratitude for the great gift of life he has made to each of us .

Famous quotes

- To live is to abandon oneself, like a seagull, to the thrill of the wind. To live is to savor the adventure of freedom. To live is to spread the wing, the only wing, with the confidence of those who know they have a partner as big as you in flight! But knowing how to fly with you is not enough, Lord, you have given me the task of embracing my brother and helping him to fly.

- I want to thank you, Lord, for the gift of life. I read somewhere that men are angels with only one wing: they can fly only by remaining embraced. Sometimes, in moments of confidence, I dare to think, Lord, that you too have only one wing. Keep the other one hidden: perhaps to make me understand that you don't want to fly without me.

- Only if we have served will we be able to speak and be believed. The only door that introduces us today to the house of credibility is the door of service ... .. A gesture of service counts more than all the sermons and homilies!

- Christmas greetings: many uncomfortable greetings, then, my dear brothers! Jesus born of love will give you the nausea of ​​a selfish, absurd life without vertical thrusts and allow you to invent a life full of donation, prayer, silence, courage.

- We can't stay in church; Mass is a force that pushes us out! ... Mass forces us to leave the table, urges action, pushes us to leave our residential cadences. It stimulates us to invest the fire we have received in dynamic and missionary gestures. If you don't get up from the table, the Eucharist remains an unfinished sacrament.

- If you crave to get rich, if you crave for rampant careers, to override others in making way, if you crave for double, triple salary, we leave this Church! If in your home you allow the logic of accumulation, luxury, waste, bourgeois mentality, taking one, two, three or four cars to go ahead, let's get out of this church!

- Divide your wealth, be part of it to those who do not have it, to the disinherited of life. Not only to those who have no money, but also to those who have a swollen wallet and an empty heart! And to those who have no health, who are exhausted, tired, who can't take it anymore.

- Prayer addressed to Mary: ... ”Instead, you are a stake of charity for the Creator, you are also a teacher of how creatures love each other. Help us, therefore, to recompose the absurd dissociations with which, in terms of love, we carry out separate accounts: one for heaven (too poor in truth), and the other for the earth (full of voices, but anemic of contents) ".

- To love, the voice of the verb to die, means to decentralize. Leave yourself. Give without asking. Be discreet on the edge of silence. To suffer to bring down the scales of selfishness. Get out of the way when you risk compromising the peace of a home. Desire the happiness of the other. Respect his fate. And disappear, when one realizes that he is disturbing his mission.

- Santa Maria, woman in love, since the Lord said to you: "All my springs are in you", make us perceive that love is always the underground network of those sudden blades of happiness, which in some moments of your life they pierce the spirit, reconcile you with things and give you the joy of existing ……. Help us, because, in those quick moments of falling in love with the universe, we can guess that the nightly chants of the cloistered and the ballets of the Bolscjoi dancers have the same source of charity. And that the inspirational source of the melody that resounds in a cathedral in the morning is the same as the refrain that you hear coming in the evening ... from a roundabout on the sea: "Talk to me about love, Mariù".

Recommended readings

• Phrases of St. Dominic of Guzman: biography
• Phrases of Santa Gemma Galgani: quotes and aphorisms
• Phrases of Saint Anthony of Padua: quotes, aphorisms
• Phrases of San Filippo Neri: famous aphorisms from the writings
• Phrases of San Camillo de Lellis: quotes and thoughts

- We must engage in route choices, in roadmaps: we cannot talk about peace by indicating the last stages and skipping the intermediate ones! If we are not capable of small daily pardons between individual and individual, between family members, between communities and communities ... it's all useless! Peace is not only a pious sigh, a fabulous moan, a romantic thought ... it is, above all, practice.

- Christianity is the religion of proper names, not of essences. Concrete faces, not ectoplasms. Of the neighbor in flesh and blood to deal with, and not of the voluntaristic abstractions to bask with.

Phrases of Don Tonino Bello

- In Golgotha ​​we go in procession, as Jesus went there. Not alone. Praying, struggling, suffering with others. Not with solitary climbs, but in solidarity with others who, precisely to advance together, give themselves rules, projects, precise rules, which everyone must submit to. If not, something breaks. Not the crystal of a virtue which, in the limit, can also be recomposed with a confession. But the fabric of a communion which, once torn, will require long times for patient re-stitching.

- To young people: Love people without asking for anything in return. Even when the other person cannot give you anything good, love him. Don't love your companions just because they are good, because they exchange so many things with you; love also those who give you nothing.

- We must not be afraid that out of ten people knocking on the door, only one really needs. It is better to help all ten, rather than send away the one in need with empty hands.

- ... Change is possible. For everyone.
There is no ancient sadness that holds. There are no scales of old ferments that can resist the impact of grace.
Easter, a feast that redeems us from our heavy past.
Not for nothing, we celebrate it by breaking that unleavened bread that wants to be a symbol for everyone and ... ferment of novelty.

- To those who count for nothing: Courage! God does not make rankings. He does not always let himself be enchanted by those who can speak better. Compared to the dignified sighs of the poor, it does not always give priority to the Gregorian chant that resounds in the churches. Nor does he always be seduced by the scent of incense, more than he notices the stench that rises from the basement of history… ..I want to turn to you, because I am convinced that spiritual renewal can only start from those who count for nothing… …… .If you manage to free yourself from resignation, if you place greater trust in solidarity, if you break it with the pernicious style of delegation, if you do not sell yourself the dignity for a plate of lentils, if you are so tenacious to exercise constant control over those who administer you, if you provoke the believers in Christ to pass weapons and baggage on your side, we will not delay in seeing the signs of the resurrection. New times will also come for the Church.

- To those who find it hard to fail: the success of an existence is not calculated with the parameters of the stock market fixing. And the successes that count do not measure with the applausometer of the audiences, or with the approval ratings of the crowds ... Ever since the Man of the Cross was hoisted on the gallows, that wood of failure has become the true parameter of every victory, and defeats are no longer measured by the condition of the whistles that are remedied, or the shipwrecks in which dreams drown.

- Our existence is not useless. Our pain feeds the hidden economy of grace .... suffering keeps the world spiritually upright. To the same extent that the passion of Jesus supports the path of the universe towards the goal of the Kingdom.

Poems by Don Tonino Bello

- I wish you an oasis of peace. The road always comes before you and the wind blows behind you and the dew always bathes the grass you step on. And the smile always shines on your face. And the crying that appears on your eyes is only a cry of happiness. And if it should be tears of bitterness and pain, there is always someone ready to dry them. The sun enters to shine brightly in your home, to bring so much light, so much hope and so much warmth.