Let us ask God, when it comes time to ask him for
something, to help us to be generous.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 47
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
July 10
The more you save, the less you will be able to give. The
less you have, the more you will know how to share.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 47
July 9
Open your hearts to the love God instills in others. God
loves you tenderly. What he gives you is not to be kept under lock and key, but
to be shared.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 47
July 8
I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do not
give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 46
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
July 7
What is a Christian?" someone asked a Hindu man. He
responded, “The Christian is someone who gives.”
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 46
July 6
Some years ago Calcutta
When they handed it to me, the little one told me: “I have
spent three days without eating any sugar. Take it. This is for your children.”
The little one loved with an intense love. He had
expressed it by a personal sacrifice. I repeat: he was no more than three or
four years old. He could hardly say my name. I did not know him; I had never
seen him before. Nor had I met his parents. The boy made that decision after he
found out, from the grownups, about my situation.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 45
July 5
One night, a man came to our house to tell me that a Hindu
family, a family of eight children, had not eaten anything for days.
They had nothing to eat.
I took enough rice for a meal and went to their house. I
could see the hungry faces, the children with their bulging eyes. The sight
could not have been more dramatic!
The mother took the rice from my hands, divided it in half
and went out. When she came back a little later, I asked her: “Where did you go?
What did you do?”
She answered, “They also are hungry.” “They” were the
people next door, a Muslim family with the same number of children to feed and
who did not have any food either.
That mother was aware of the situation. She had the
courage and the love to share her meager portion of rice with others. In spite
of her circumstances, I think she felt very happy to share with her neighbors
the little I had taken her.
In order not to take away her happiness, I did not take
her anymore rice that night. I took her some more the following day.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 43-44
July 4
I believe it was Saint Vincent de Paul who used to say to
those who wanted to join his congregation: “Never forget, my children, that the
poor are our masters. That is why we should love them and serve them, with
utter respect, and do what they bid us.”
Do you not believe that it can happen, on the other hand,
that we treat the poor like they are a garbage bag in which we throw everything
we have no use for? Food we do not like or that is going bad—we throw it there.
Perishable goods past their expiration date, and which might harm us, go in the
garbage bag: in other words, go to the poor.
An article of clothing that is not in style anymore, that
we do not want to wear again, goes to the poor. This does not show any respect
for the dignity of the poor; this is not to consider them our masters, like
Saint Vincent de Paul taught his religious, but to consider them less than our equals.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 42
July 3
We feed ourselves, not to please our senses, but to show
our Lord that we want to work for him and with him, to live a life of sacrifice
and reparation.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 41
July 2
Without a spirit of sacrifice, without a life of prayer,
without an intimate attitude of penance, We would not be capable of carrying
out our work.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 39
July 1
Silence will teach us a lot. It will teach us to speak
with Christ and to speak joyfully to our brothers and sisters.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 37
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
June 30
Praying the Our Father and living it will lead us toward
saintliness. The Our Father contains everything: God, ourselves, our neighbors
. . .
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 37
June 29
Every day at communion time, I communicate two of my
feelings to Jesus. One is gratefulness, because he has helped me to persevere
until today.
The other is a request: teach me to pray.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 36
June 28
I am asked what is one to do to be sure that one is
following the way of salvation. I answer: “Love God. And, above all, pray.”
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 36
June 27
There is a prayer that the Missionaries of Charity pray
every day. Cardinal Newman wrote it:
Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance wherever I am.
Fill my heart with your Spirit and your life.
Penetrate my being and take such hold of me that my life becomes
a radiation of your own life.
Give your light through me and remain in me in such a way that
every soul I come in contact with can feel your presence in me.
May people not see me, but see you in me. Remain in me, so
that I shine with your light, and may others be illuminated by my light.
All light will come from you, Oh Jesus.
Not even the smallest ray of light will be mine. You will illuminate
others through me.
Place on my lips your greatest praise, illuminating others
around me.
May I preach you with actions more than with words, with the
example of my actions, with the visible light of the love that comes from you
to my heart.
Amen.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 34-35
June 26
Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the
hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to his voice in the depths of
our hearts.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 33
June 25
Make us, Lord, worthy to serve our brothers and sisters
who are scattered all over the world, who live and die alone and poor. Give them
today, using our hands, their daily bread. And, using our love, give them peace
and happiness.
Amen.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 33
June 24
I think that every time we say the Our Father, God looks
at his hands, where we are etched. “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of
my hands . . .” (Isaiah 49:16).
What a beautiful description and also expressive of the
personal love God feels for each one of us!
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 32
June 23
The apostles did not know how to pray, and they asked
Jesus to teach them. He, then, taught them the Our Father.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 32
June 22
My secret is a very simple one: I pray. To pray to Christ
is to love him.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 31
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
June 21
The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of
prayer are people of silence.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 31
June 20
Saint Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument
of your peace:
where there is hatred
let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Lord, may I not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive,
in pardoning that we are pardoned.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 30
June 19
Prayer begets faith, faith begets love, and love begets
service on behalf of the poor.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 29
June 18
To love with a pure heart, to love everybody, especially
to love the poor, is a twenty-four-hour prayer.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 28
June 17
It is not necessary to always be meditating, nor to
consciously experience the sensation that we are talking to God, no matter how
nice this would be.
What matters is being with
him, living in him, in his will.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 28
June 16
Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but
that we continue working as if it were a prayer.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 28
June 15
There are some people who, in order not to pray, use as an
excuse the fact that life is so hectic that it prevents them from praying. This
cannot be.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 28
Monday, May 28, 2012
June 14
I believe that politicians spend too little time on their
knees. I am convinced that they would be better politicians if they were to do
so.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 27
June 13
Prayer makes your heart bigger, until it is capable of
containing the gift of God himself.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 25
June 12
The saints are all the people who live according to the
law God has given us.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 23
June 11
Once when Saint Francis of Assisi ran into a leper who was
completely disfigured, he instinctively backed up. Right away he overcame the
disgust he felt and kissed the face that was completely disfigured. What was
the outcome of this? Francis felt himself filled with tremendous joy. He felt
totally in control of himself.
And the leper went on his way praising God.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 22
June 10
This is the secret we discover in the lives of some
saints: the ability to go beyond what is merely natural.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 22
June 9
To sometimes experience disgust is something quite
natural. The virtue, which at times is of heroic proportions, consists in being
able to overcome disgust, for the love of Jesus.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 22
June 8
The fact of death should not sadden us. The only thing
that should sadden us is to know that we are not saints.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 21
Friday, May 25, 2012
June 7
We should go out to meet people. Meet the people who live
afar and those who live very close by. Meet the materially poor or the spiritually
poor.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 21
June 6
If we do the work for God and for his glory, we may be
sanctified.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 21
June 5
Renunciation, temptations, struggles, persecutions, and
all kinds of sacrifices are what surround the soul that has opted for holiness.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 20
June 4
(In order to be saints) Our willingness is important because
it changes us into the image of God and likens us to him! The decision to be
holy is a very dear one.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 20
June 3
In order to be saints, you have to seriously want to be
one.
Saint Thomas Aquinas assures us that holiness “is nothing
else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders to God.”
And he adds: “Spontaneously we love God, we run towards him, we get close to
him, we possess him.”
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 20
June 2
Holiness is not the luxury of a few. It is everyone’s
duty: yours and
mine.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 19
June 1
Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things.
It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in
accepting and following the will of God.
Mother Teresa: In My Own Words, p 17
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