Friday, July 25, 2003
Looking at Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa once said, " It is not enough for us to say: 'I love God.' I also have to love my neighbor. In the scriptures, St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you do not love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?
Her approach to holiness, and what makes what she started so attractive to those who look at it is that it is based on these things:
Loving God
Loving our neighbor, because God wants us to.
Sacrifice, modeled after Jesus' willingness to sacrifice.
"It is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people, and in fact to do good to them."
"I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people. " I find this a marvelous insight. In this cold, hateful, vengeful world, it is so much easier to hurt that to refrain from hurting. Just this week, a failed political candidate when into city hall in New York and killed his rival. Hot anger makes it easy to pull the trigger. Righteousness calls for us not to let that anger wash us away. It is harder to eat that anger, refrain from the hurtful word, refrain from screaming at the irritating child. It is even harder to do good to those who hurt us.
One of St. Teresa's namesakes, St. Therese of Liseaux, made it a part of her "little way" to adopt the person most irritating to her, to never let them know how frustrating and bothersome they could be, and to treat them with as much love and care as if they were her dearest friend, or Christ himself.
This is loving til it hurts. Giving not just the easy stuff, but the stuff that you don't really want to do. And why? Because that way, we are serving Jesus himself, manifested in the poor, the unpleasant, the needy, the lonely, the forsaken. And thus, Mother Teresa profoundly impacted her day-to-day world in ways that amazed onlookers.
Mother Teresa once said, " It is not enough for us to say: 'I love God.' I also have to love my neighbor. In the scriptures, St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you do not love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?
Her approach to holiness, and what makes what she started so attractive to those who look at it is that it is based on these things:
Loving God
Loving our neighbor, because God wants us to.
Sacrifice, modeled after Jesus' willingness to sacrifice.
"It is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people, and in fact to do good to them."
"I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people. " I find this a marvelous insight. In this cold, hateful, vengeful world, it is so much easier to hurt that to refrain from hurting. Just this week, a failed political candidate when into city hall in New York and killed his rival. Hot anger makes it easy to pull the trigger. Righteousness calls for us not to let that anger wash us away. It is harder to eat that anger, refrain from the hurtful word, refrain from screaming at the irritating child. It is even harder to do good to those who hurt us.
One of St. Teresa's namesakes, St. Therese of Liseaux, made it a part of her "little way" to adopt the person most irritating to her, to never let them know how frustrating and bothersome they could be, and to treat them with as much love and care as if they were her dearest friend, or Christ himself.
This is loving til it hurts. Giving not just the easy stuff, but the stuff that you don't really want to do. And why? Because that way, we are serving Jesus himself, manifested in the poor, the unpleasant, the needy, the lonely, the forsaken. And thus, Mother Teresa profoundly impacted her day-to-day world in ways that amazed onlookers.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
