Cruelty is invariably accompanied by sentimentality. It is the law of complementaries [sic].
~ Arnold Susi (quoted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
And this, my mother, is what I think of most of our acts of charity. Mere sentimentality that offsets (and masks) our inherent violence and cruelty.
The fact that we (as gentle, well-intentioned folk) engage in such acts only highlights our ignorance.
Certainly God is able to brings some good out of these acts but let us not forget that God brought good out of crucifixion. That does not mean we are to continue to crucify others. No, we are to “take the crucified people down from the cross” (as the Liberation Theologians suggest). Or, better yet, we are to join the crucified people on the cross. To allow ourselves to be crucified is the only road that will liberate us from our sentimentality — and from our cruelty.