The Poetic Life of Mother T. (quote)

My God, it is of my own free will, and with the help of your love, that I want to remain here in the streets with the poor to accomplish your will. I do not want to go back; my community is the poor; their security, mine; their health, my health.

My house is the house of the poor. Not simply the poor but the poorest of the poor.

Of the ones which we do not approach because we fear the dirt and infections.

Of the ones full of sickness and contagion.

Of the ones who cannot pray in churches because of the want of a piece of cloth.

Of the ones unable to eat because they have lost the strength to nourish themselves.

Of the ones unable to cry because they have shed all tears.

Of the ones lying on the street’s pavement knowing they are about to die while others go by uncaring and uninterested.

Of the ones needing not so much a house of bricks but an understanding heart.

Of the ones not so much wanting a cover for their nakedness but dignity, purity, justice.

Of the ones rejected, unwanted, unloved, fallen along the way because they, too, are the poorest, the spiritually poorest of the poor, under whose distress, you, my God, disguise yourself, thirsting for my love the same as you do under the bread of the Eucharist.

Teach me how to recognize you in them and totally surrender to you today and everyday until the end of my time, when again I will see you face to face in glory. Amen.

–Mother Teresa, Thirsting for God

 

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