Since I wrote my last blog entry, I have been thinking a lot about this idea of pouring ourselves out, spending ourselves, giving of ourselves. The more I think about it, the more that I am convinced that each of us, one by one, allowing ourselves to be poured out on a love-hungry world is how God is going to bring about His Kingdom. One of my favorite quotes of all time is this one from Mother Theresa:
In this life we cannot do great things. Only small things with great love.
I wasn’t sure of the exact wording of this quote, so I looked it up online. For the past few moments, I have been reading more of Mother Teresa’s quotes. I want to share more of her quotes with you, but first I want to re-visit just one of the verses from the scripture that I referenced in my last post.
Here are two versions of Isaiah 58:10
(The Message) If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.(NIV) If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
Now listen to some of what Mother Teresa has to teach us about how to see the hungry and oppressed in our midst:
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.
There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread
Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
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.
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.You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing. Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me. Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me.
I have a great deal more to say on this subject, but I feel the need to be silent for now and rest in the words of one of God’s great servants. More later.
“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.”
I love that quote! We are usually so hampered by our own weakness. What a sign of faith to believe in His love more than our weakness. Great post.
This both comforts me, and shakes me up. On the one hand, it’s good to know that whatever I do for people that are in my path, I do for Christ also…but ever since I started school in DC, I have felt unnerved by the vast numbers of homeless people in the streets begging–what unnerves me most is how irritated I get…and how jaded I’ve become…I know I should have a heart for all of Christ’s needy, but I can’t help but think people should stop just feeding the hungry and tossing them money, and start educating them so that they are able to work for themselves. Just my two cents.
Emily, I agree that the band-aid approach to homelessness is not effective. We must start getting to the root of homelessness…its causes and ways to prevent it. However, I don’t believe that feeding the hungry AND working towards preventing hunger are mutually exclusive. Many of us assuage our liberal guilt by throwing money at a problem without considering how we can be part of a long-term solution. Organizations like WFCM in our community are attempting to do both…supporting them and programs like theirs is a step in the right direction. How we vote in November is another place to focus our attention…more on that later!
We spent a wonderful weekend with a priest from the Bronx who has worked in and now runs a soup kitchen. He took one of his “sons” to a talk regarding the needy and a smart-alecky teenager said “Besides money, what do you need?” The man in need came back with “Know I am here.” We need to do more than just hand them money but we need to help them by working in soup kitchens, supplying WFCM with clothes and food and praying for them. They need all of these things to “feed” their hunger.