Dom Helder Camara

Bishop of Rio de Janiro, he believed that the power of the church should be used for the poor, and worked toward this end in Vatican II.  He led the Pact of the Catacombs, a group of priests devoted to the poor.  He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the government of Brazil stood in his way.

His greatest work, however, were his poems in which he expressed his deeper life before God.  He wrote seven thousand poems in his life, and the far majority of them have not been published.  Here is a handful.

Become an expert
in the art
of discovering the good
in every person.
No one
is entirely bad.
Become an expert
in the art
of finding the truthful core
in views of every kind.
The human mind
abhors total error.

There are those

whose being 

is possession.

There are those

whose essence

is giving.

If you disagree with me,
if you have something to give me,
if you are sincere
and seek the truth
as best you may,
honestly, with modest care,
your thought is growth
to mine, correction,
you deepen my vision.

Hope without risk

is not hope

which is believing

in risky loving,

trusting others

in the dark

the blind leap

letting God take over.

When on judgement day
the angels call the artists in
they will be so proud
of their share
in God the Father's power
of creation,
that the Son
will find it hard
to judge them strictly
because poets especially
remind him of his Father.

Lord,

isn't your creation wasteful?

Fruits never equal

the seedlings abundance.

Springs scatter water.

The sun gives out

enormous light.

May your bounty teach me

greatness of heart.

May your magnificence 

stop me being mean. 

Seeing you a prodigal

and open-handed giver,

let me unstintingly,

like a king's son,

like God's own.

Hear, O Lord

my special prayer

for my people,

the voiceless ones.

There are thousands 

and thousands

of human creatures

in the poor countries

and in the slums

of the rich countries

with no right

to raise their voices

no possibility 

of claiming

of protesting

however just

are the rights

they have to uphold.

-All poems taken from the volume Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings, most are from the original volume The Desert is Fertile.