This article provides a discussion on how images of charity are related to an ideal image of society - a Utopia. By going deeper into the relation between images of suffering, poverty and mendicancy I explore how a group of penitents ''the Ave de Jesus'' from Juazeiro Norte creates a sociality based on generosity, hospitality and sharing whereby they realise a messianic expectation. The major argument leads to a more general discussion of the bases of social life, the material on the Ave de Jesus serving to stress the significance of sociality based on charity and a whole complex organized around it that challenges some classical athropological theory on gift-reciprocity.
gift; moral sentiments; messianic expectation