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You can touch the sick, the leper and believe that it is the body of Christ you are touching, but it is much more difficult when these people are drunk or shouting to think that this is Jesus in His distressing disguise. How clean and loving our hands must be to be able to bring that compassion to them!
Therefore, the more disfigured the image of God is in that person, the greater will be our faith and devotion in seeking Jesus’ face and lovingly ministering to Him.
The more repugnant the work, the greater the effect of love and cheerful service.
Feelings of repugnance are human. If we give our wholehearted, free service in spite of such feelings, we will become holy.
However beautiful the work is, be detached from it, even ready to give it up. The work is not yours. The talents God has given you are not yours; they have been given to you for your use, for the glory of God. Be great and use everything in you for the good Master.
“They should spend time on their knees. I think that would help them to become better statesmen.”
advice for politicians
Daily Prayer of the Co-workers of Mother Teresa Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them, through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding Love, give Peace and Joy. Lord, make me a channel of Thy Peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring Love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the Spirit of Forgiveness; that where there is discord, I may bring Harmony; that where there is error, I may bring Truth; that where there is doubt, I may bring Faith; that where there is despair, I may bring
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mother Teresa daily prayer
I assure you, as often as you did it for one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me. — JESUS, MATTHEW 25:40 NAB
There is a story of a little robin. He saw Jesus on the cross, saw the crown of thorns. The bird flew around and around until he found a way to remove a thorn, and in removing the thorn stuck himself. Each one of us should be that bird. What have I done? What comfort have I given? Does my work really mean something? The little robin tried to remove just one thorn. When I look at the cross, I think of that robin. Don’t pass by the cross; it is a place of grace.
Love, in order to survive, must be nourished by sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of self. Renouncing means to offer my free will, my reason, my life, in an attitude of faith. My soul can be in darkness; trials are the surest tests of my blind renunciation. Renunciation also means love. The more we renounce, the more we love God and man.
trials are the surest test of blind renunciation
We know Him through prayers, meditations, and spiritual duties.
how we know Jesus:
prayers
mediations
spiritual duties
We love Him through holy Mass and the sacraments
how we love jesus:
mass
sacraments
They say that the passion in Gethsemane was much greater than even the crucifixion. Because it was His heart, His soul that was being crucified, while on the cross, it was His body that was crucified.
garden passion worse than passion on the cross
He asked, “Why could you not spend one hour with me?” We know He needed consolation. This is total surrender — not to be loved by
anybody, not to be wanted by anybody, just to be a nobody because we hav...
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Bits of bread can be so small that even a baby can chew it, even a dying person can eat it. He became the Bread of Life to satisfy our hunger for God, our hunger for love.
In his passion Jesus taught us how to forgive out of love, how to forget out of humility. Find Jesus, and you will find peace.
Don’t allow anything to interfere with your love for Jesus.
You must not be afraid to say “Yes” to Jesus, because there is no greater love than His love and no greater joy than His joy. My prayer for you is that you come to understand and have the courage to answer Jesus’ call to you with the simple word, “Yes.” Why has He chosen you? Why me? This is a mystery.
vocation
In our meditations we should always say, “Jesus, make me a saint according to your own heart, meek and humble.”
In our meditations we should always say, “Jesus, make me a saint according to your own heart, meek and humble.”
One thing Jesus asks of me: that I lean on Him; that in Him and only in Him I put complete trust; that I surrender myself to Him unreservedly. Even when all goes wrong and I feel as if I am a ship without a compass, I must give myself completely to Him. I must not attempt to control God’s action; I must not count the stages in the journey He would have me make. I must not desire a clear perception of my advance upon the road, must not know precisely where I am upon the way of holiness. I ask Him to make a saint of me, yet I must leave to Him the choice of the saintliness itself and still more
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how we should trust God
Poverty doesn’t only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity.
On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life.
You in the West have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor.
to console or to remove the bitterness, anger, and loneliness that comes from being spiritually deprived, that takes a long time.
Needs increase because one thing calls for another. The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction. Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.
It would be a shame for us to be richer than Jesus, who for our sake endured poverty.
He chose poverty because He knew that it was the genuine means to possess God and to bring His love to the earth.
For our part, what we desire is not a class struggle but a class encounter, in which the rich save the poor and the poor save the rich.
We practice the virtue of poverty when we mend our clothes quickly and as beautifully as we can. Patched clothes are no disgrace. It is said of Saint Francis of Assisi that when he died his habit had so many patches that the original cloth was no longer there.
We must first satisfy the needs of the body, so we can then bring Christ to the poor.
Abandonment is an awful poverty.
The poor do not need our compassion or our pity; they need our help. What they give to us is more than what we give to them.
The poor do not need our compassion or our pity; they need our help. What they give to us is more than what we give to them.
But the poor have above all great courage to lead the life they lead.
But the poor have above all great courage to lead the life they lead.
Here a beautiful standard for judgment presents itself. We have to become increasingly aware that the poor are the hope of humanity, for we will be judged by how we have treated the poor. We will have to face this reality when we are summoned before the throne of God: “I was hungry. I was naked. I was homeless. And whatever you did to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.”
When we realize that we are all sinners needing forgiveness, it will be easy for us to forgive others.
Confession is a beautiful act of great love. Only in confession can we go as sinners with sin and come out as sinners without sin. Confession is nothing but humility in action.
Confession is a place where I allow Jesus to take away from me everything that divides, that destroys.
The confessional is not a place for useless conversation or gossip. The topic should be my sins, my sorrow, my forgiveness; how to overcome my temptations, how to practice virtue, how to increase in the love of God.
This is humility: to have the courage to accept humiliation and receive God’s forgiveness.
Knowledge of self is very necessary for confession.
When we remember that every morning at Communion we have held in our hands all the holiness of God, we feel more willing to abstain from everything that may stain our purity.
People are afraid of having children. Children have lost their place in the family. Children are so very, very lonely!
I don’t want to talk about what should be legal or illegal. I don’t think any human heart should dare to take life, or any human hand be raised to destroy life. Life is the life of God in us. Life is the greatest gift that God has bestowed on human beings, and man has been created in the image of God. Life belongs to God, and we have no right to destroy it.
Almighty God chose an unborn child to announce the coming of His Son!
Our mother the Church has elevated women to a great honor in the presence of God by proclaiming Mary the mother of the Church.
women in the church
natural family planning,
So the breakdown of peace in the world begins at home.
Why are they broken? I think because they never pray together. They are never in prayer before the Lord.
People who really and truly love each other are the happiest people in the world. We see that with our very poor people. They love their children and they love their families. They may have very little, in fact, they may not have anything, but they are happy people. Jesus was born into a family and stayed in Nazareth for thirty years. He had come to redeem the world, yet He spent thirty years in Nazareth, doing the humble work of an ordinary person. He spent all those years just living out family life.
