in pursuit of tru[beauty]th

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.

Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing. For a sacrifice to be real, it must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace. -Mother Teresa

~*~ THE CALL ~*~

To quench the thirst of Jesus… to quench the thirst of Jesus for souls, for love, for kindness, for compassion.

Jesus has chosen us for himself. We belong to him. Let us be so convinced of this “belonging” that we allow nothing, however small, to separate us from his love.

We belong to him with all our misery, our sin, our weakness, our goodness. We are his.

There is so much unhappiness, so much misery everywhere. Our human nature stays with us from beginning to end. We must work hard every day to conquer ourselves. we must learn to be meek and humble of heart. Let us try to give everything to Jesus: every word, every moment. Jesus use my eyes, my ears, my feet!

Humility is nothing but truth.

Self-knowledge puts us on our knees and it is very necessary for love. For knowledge of God produces love and knowledge of self produces humility.

We are bound to remain faithful to the poorest of the poor,the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for. That means we depend solely on Divine Providence.

~*~ THE POOR ~*~

The hunger of today is much greater; it is a hunger for love, to be wanted, to be cared for, to be somebody.

We need to trust our poor people. The greatest injustice done to our poor is that we fail to trust them, to respect them, to love them.

Living in the presence of God fills us with joy.
Joy is a net of love by which we catch souls.

~*~ POVERTY ~*~

Our poverty should be true gospel poverty - gentle, tender, glad, and openhearted, always ready to give an expression of love.

For we do not profess the poverty of beggars, but the poverty of Christ… we choose to be equal to the poor, we choose to be poor like them in everything except destitution…. He became poor for love of us.

Get rid of anything that’s holding you back… the more we have, the less we can give. So let us have less to be able to give all to Jesus.

~*~ CHASTITY ~*~

It is the vow of chastity that gives us the freedom to love everybody instead of simply becoming a mother to three or four children.

This consecration… is the source of your joy and fulfillment.

~*~ OBEDIENCE ~*~

True obedience is a genuine act of love.

Obedience gives us inward joy and peace.

Knowledge of God, love of God, service of God - that is the end of our lives - and obedience gives us the key to it all.

Poverty and obedience are very closely tied. These complete each other. One cannot be without the other. Poverty is the sister and obedience is the brother.

Love for obedience is love for the will of God.

~*~ WHOLEHEARTED SERVICE ~*~

We owe our poor people the greatest gratitude because they allow us to touch Christ.

We have been called to give until it hurts.

~*~ PRAYER ~*~

We are called to seek the face of God in everything, everyone, everywhere, all the time, and his hand in every happening…

Let the love of God once take entire and absolute possession of a heart; let it become to that heart like a second nature….

Our lives must be connected with the living Christ in us. If we do not live in the presence of God, we cannot go on.

Confession is nothing but humility in action… it is a beautiful act of great love.

~*~ SILENCE ~*~

If we will only learn silence, we will learn two things: to pray and to be humble. You cannot love unless you have humility, and you cannot be humble if you do not love. From the silence of the heart God speaks. There is no silence if there are things that have got inside.

For the more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active lives.

The greatest humiliation is to know that you are nothing… It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with himself.

~*~ THE LIFE OF SERVICE ~*~

Faith in action is love.
Love in action is service.

We need to be pure of heart to see Jesus in the person of the poorest of the poor. Therefore the more repugnant the work, or the more disfigured or deformed the image of God in the person, the greater will be our faith and loving devotion in seeking the face of Jesus, and lovingly ministering to him in the distressing disguise.

However beautiful the work is, be detached from it - even ready to give it up. You may be doing great good in one place, but obedience calls you elsewhere. Be ready to leave. The work is not yours. You are working for Jesus.

One of our brothers really loves the lepers… He said to me, “I love the lepers. I want to be with them. I want to work for them. My vocation is to be with the lepers.” I said to him, “Brother, you are making a mistake. Your vocation is not to work for the lepers. Your vocation is to belong to Jesus… That is the completion of your vocation, of your belonging to Christ.”

Our work is not a profession, but a vocation chosen to satisfy the thirst of Jesus by total surrender, without counting the cost.

Sisters, don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…. Do it all with a great, undivided love.

Our poor people suffer much, and unless we go with joy, we cannot hep them. We will make them more miserable.

Draw them to God, but never never to yourself. If you are not drawing them to God, then you are seeking yourself, and people love you for yourself and not because you remind them of Christ.

This love of Christ should urge us to spend ourselves without ceasing.

Love to be true must hurt.

Today God loves the world through you and through me.