We Need Pilgrim Witnesses...

...We need prophetic witnesses. We need people who in their way of life challenge the prevailing false ideologies bearing upon the production, distribution, and use of material goods. We need lived prophecy.

Let me be concrete. The best paid fifth of American white workers earn five or six times more than the worst paid fifth. Those who offer pat solutions to complex problems would probably call on Congress (or Parliament) to make laws to force greater equity in the distribution of the fruits of production. If a legislative body were to try to establish equity by law, it would have a revolution on its hands. The basic presuppositions of the population must change first. Ideological structures undergird and support laws and other structures.

We therefore need pilgrim witnesses. We need joyous, loving men and women to show in their lives that one can live a sparing-sharing lifestyle and still be happy and fulfilled. We need to induce conversion into the masses first by example, then by word—really, by both simultaneously.

—Fr. Thomas Dubay, Happy Are You Poor (as quoted on Ignatius Press' Facebook page today)