>> Tuesday, August 01, 2006
8:11 PM
i came across this book by Mother Teresa in the library and the 2nd chapter is on love.loving people, is loving God. but sometimes, it's much easier to love strangers in need, than to people around us, people who don't seem to need any sort of love from us. people who make us feel that they are better off left alone. people who are unlovable. but God loves everyone of us.
in the words of Mother Teresa, "When we see God in each other, we will love each other as He loves us all. That is the fulfillment of the law, to love one another. This is all Jesus came to teach us: that God loves us, and that He wants us to love one another as He loves us."
One day i picked up a man from the gutter. His body is covered with worms. I brought him to our house, and what did this man say? He did not curse. He did not blame anyone. He just said, "I've lived like an animal in the street, but I'm going to die like an angel, loved and cared for!" It took us 3 hours to clean him. Finally, the man looked up at the sister and said, "Sister, I'm going home to God."And then he died. I've never seen such a radiant smile on a human face as I saw on that man's face. He went home to God. See what love can do! It is possible that the sister did not think about it at the moment, but she was touching the body of Christ. Jesus said so when He said, "As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me" (Matthew 25:40 RSV). And this is where you and i fit into the plan.
Let us understand the tenderness of God's love. For He speaks in the Scripture, "Even id a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you on the palm of my hand" (Isaiah 49:15-16) When you feel lonely, when you feel unwanted, when you feel sick and forgotten, remember you are precious to Him. He loves you. Show that love for one another, for this is all that Jesus came to teach us.
I remember a mother of 12 children, the last of them terribly mutilated. It is impossible for me to describe the creature. I volunteered to welcome the child into our house, where there are many others in similar conditions. The woman began to cry. "For God's sake, Mother," she said, "don't tell me that. This ceature is the greatest gift of God to me and my family. All our love is focused on her. Our lives will be empty if you took her from us." Hers was a love full of understanding and tenderness. Do we have a love like that today? Do we realise that our child, our husband, our wife, our father, our mother, our sister, our brother, has a need for that understanding, the warmth of our hand?
I will never forget one day in Venezula when i went to visit a family who had given us a lamb. I went to thank them and there I found out that they had a badly crippled child. I asked the mother, "What is the child's name?" The mother gave us a most beautiful answer. "We call him Teacher of Love, because he keeps on teaching us how to love. Everything we do for him is our love for God in action."
when life is good for us, it's much easier to focus on ourselves, on God solving our problems, giving us our solutions, giving us our breakthroughs. much more difficult to carry our God's commandment to LOVE. because it requires of us to see Christ in every person that we meet. to see a need and to meet it. are we separating our spiritual walk from our lives? using God as our problem solver? granter of wishes? alot of us may think that Mother Teresa is a good person, so good that she is truly a woman of God. but we are all children of God and we are all equally commanded to love. and remember, God never commands the impossible :)
Rae gemmed @ 8:11 PM
