The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living

by Mother Teresa

Sometime ago, two young people came to our house and they gave me a large sum of money to feed the poor. I asked them : Where did you get so much money?’ And they said : ‘Two days ago we got married and we decided that we were not going to buy wedding clothes, we were not going to have a wedding feast, we would give you the money to feed the poor.’ And I asked them again : But why did you do that? They said : ‘We love each other so much that we wanted to begin our life together by sharing the joy of loving with the people you serve by making a sacrifice.’ This love is sanctity and the more we grow in this love, the closer we come to God. 7 DECEMBER Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we there? Let us know the poor in our own families first. We have old people : they are put in institutions and they are never visited; with less and less time even to smile at each other, with less and less time to be together. Love begins at home, if we can only make our own homes temples of love.