“The commandment we have from him is this:
those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
1 John 4:21
Since the time of Adam and Eve, our Lord has provided us with everything we need in life, including the choice to reject it all. Yes, the power to choose is one of the most awesome, mysterious and wonderful of God’s gifts. Whether we accept it or not, it is something we live with every moment of the day. In fact, our lives are filled with choices between our way and the Godly way.
The history of the Christian faith is filled with inspirational stories of people whom made Godly choices. One story begins long ago with a young girl named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu who chose to become a nun when she was 18 years old. As a nun, Agnes was assigned to teach very wealthy children in Calcutta , India
Then one night she was walking home and heard a woman crying out for help. Finding the injured woman lying in the street on the verge of death, Agnes rushed her to the nearest hospital. Since the woman was poor the hospital said she would have to wait for treatment. Knowing the woman would die without immediate medical attention, Agnes took the woman to another hospital. Again help was denied because the woman was poor and belonged to an undesirable social class. Desperate, Agnes took the woman to her own home. A few hours later, the woman died in peace, held in the comfort of Agnes's loving arms.
That night Agnes resolved that this would never happen again to anyone within her reach. She chose to devote her life to easing the pain of those who suffered around her. Whether they lived or died, they would do so with dignity. She made a clear choice to treat the poor better than they had ever been treated in their entire lives, with the love and respect the Lord wanted them to have.
That is the choice Agnes made. And that is how she began her journey as Mother Teresa.
We never know what the results will be when we begin to share God’s love, especially when we share it with the poor. Long after Agnes became Mother Teresa to the world, she told us, “What the poor need most is to feel needed, to feel loved. The condition of banishment which their poverty imposes is what ulcerates them. There are remedies and treatments for all kinds of illnesses, but when someone is undesirable, if there are no serving hands and loving hearts, then there is no hope for a true cure.”
This Christmas, you can become the cure by using your hands, your heart, your mind - your everything – by serving “the least of these,” the poor.
This week’s prayer
Lord Jesus help me to share your love generously. Give me the strength to choose Your will and Your way in all things. Keep me focused on the people you need me to help most of all. Show me the opportunities to help the poor and give me the discipline to make the right choice. Amen.
