From the Homilies of the Blessed Giacomo Cusmano

Poor people of Jesus, thank the good Jesus, who was moved and moved to see the hunger of that multitude: “he was moved by them” (Mk 6:34). Thank the good Jesus, who to us his apostles, in the person of the first twelve, said: “Make them sit down, give them something to eat” (Lk 9, 14-13); gather them and serve them. Thank him, because we, by virtue of this command, have chosen him as a model of solicitude, tenderness and charity, and pray for us, your servants.

Poor people of Jesus Christ, you are God’s friends, you are our protectors, and your prayers for us are equally valid with God as those of the saints of Heaven. You are omnipotent with God, you have the keys of heaven, your vows regulate the times and seasons. You spare us the scourges of God, you free us from eternal death, you are the image of Jesus Christ, and for this reason the Saints, prevented from visiting Jesus in Sacrament, knelt before the poor sick. Unhappy are those who do not want to know you, unhappy are those who do not want to appreciate you; they have their pupils turned downwards, Ah! that I would like to raise my voice aloud, and make it heard in the most remote confines of the world, to invite all souls to know you and to serve you.

Oh chosen souls who are scattered over the whole face of the earth; oh chosen souls who wish to see Jesus, desist from this pious desire; in this there would be the satisfaction of the senses, but the senses could deceive you; but come with me, I will satisfy your desire. Do you want to see Jesus? behold the poor they are like another sacrament, for Jesus is hidden in the person of the poor.

Oh you who profess to love God, the hidden God (Is 45:15), do you want to love him even better? do you want to love him as he wants and deserves? come with me and I will lead you to the house of Christian love; to the house of charity.

Woe to those souls who do not want to follow in my footsteps, but rather repeat to me: But to love God perfectly, is it necessary to go where you are, to the house of charity? Unhappy people… Listen to what the Holy Spirit answers for me: How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your brothers and sisters whom you see languishing in poverty? O you who desire treasures, do you wish to acquire the true treasure? Come to me, I will make you rich. I will lead you to Stephen the Levite, to Francis of Assisi, to Vincent de Paul, to John of God; they will point out to you the rich treasure in the person of the poor, for the poor are the treasure of Jesus Christ. For you hear his voice saying to us: “My treasure be commended to you.

Therefore, you are a great thing, you poor people of Jesus Christ. He spent for you a great part of his divine mission, he raised your poverty to the status of a sacrament, making you an object of worship, and so, behold, I prostrate myself at your feet and kiss them. I believe that in doing this with you, I do it to the person of Jesus Christ. I touch your wounds; healing and curing them with my priestly hands, I believe that I am doing this to Jesus Christ himself. You are humiliated and confused when I exercise these offices, esteeming it as a demeaning of my priestly dignity. No: let me do it freely, and thereby I ennoble the sacred character.

Did Jesus demean his dignity when he cared for and served the poor and the sick; did he demean his divinity when he touched the dead and the lepers? The priest who exercises himself in these offices renews what Jesus Christ did. He, in my opinion, continues or recalls the sacrifice of the altar; for on the altar he treats and handles the Body of Jesus Christ who was sacrificed and crucified, who lost his sanity, having been reduced to a plague from head to foot: “From the soles of the feet to the head there is not an uninjured part in it” (Is. 1, 6); and (Is 1, 6); and in the bed of the sick man the priest treats and handles the poor man covered with sores, who is the image of Jesus Christ. To the eye of the flesh these things are disgusting, but to the eye of the spirit they are divine things.