"whoever does not give God, gives too little"

"Whoever does not give God gives too little [(chi non dà Dio, dà troppo poco)]; and whoever does not give God, whoever does not enable people to see God in the face of Christ, does not build anything up but rather, wastes human activity in false, ideological dogmatism, and so ultimately only destroys.
     "Don Giussani preserved the centrality of Christ and it was exactly in this way that he that he was able, by means of social works and needed services, to help mankind in this difficult world, where Christians bear an enormous and urgent responsibility for the poor."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Funeral homily for Msgr. Luigi Giussani, Milan Cathedral, 24 February 2005, as translated by Communion and Liberation for Communio:  international Catholic review 31, no. 4 (Winter 2004):  685-687.  The Italian in which the homily was delivered is here.  The context:  "the temptation [in the face of the 'extreme poverty and misery' of Brazil] . . . to say, 'Just for the moment we will have to set Christ aside, set God aside, because there are more pressing needs.  First we have to change structures, fix the external things; first we must improve the earth, and after that we will be able to find heaven again.'"