Michael Thom

“Often it is the poor who recognize emptiness before the rest of us—and for obvious reasons. While I am not suggesting that poverty predisposes people to some form of righteousness, I have seen how their circumstances often free them from much of the pretense that our relative privilege affords us. So while the poor are not godlier on the basis of their poverty, they are often at least more authentic in their brokenness, and thus, perhaps, closer to honestly recognizing what true emptiness is.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick

“Do we honestly believe that the best witness we can have as Christians before a watching world is to show moral perfection? While that might convince some, our odds of pulling it off seem less than slim. In truth, the most compelling witness to our faith can be a willingness to humbly accept responsibility for our failings and seek to restore relationships at any cost.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick

“There is more hope in honest brokenness than in the pretense of false wholeness.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick

“Rather than elevating poverty to a form of righteousness, Jesus is instead calling for a revolution of imagination around the nature of what we consider true blessing.”
― Jamie Arpin-Ricci, The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom