In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm posting a prayer attributed to Mother Theresa. We joined hands many mornings at Bethany House, to give us all grace for the day. I know it by heart, and it reminds me of a love I began to experience this summer, agape:
Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your poor, your homeless, your sick, and while ministering to them minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: "Jesus, my guest, how sweet it is to serve you.
Lord, give me this seeing faith; then my work will never be monotonous. I will ever find joy in humoring the fancies and gratifying the wishes of all poor sufferers.
O beloved guest, how doubly dear you are to me when you personify Christ; and what a privilege is mine to be allowed to tend you.
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
And, O God, while you are Jesus, my guest, deign also to be to me a patient Jesus, bearing with my faults, looking only to my intention, which is to love and serve you in the person of each of your poor, your homeless, your sick. Lord, increase my faith, bless my efforts and work, now and forevermore.
Thanks for the bow. You don't have to be religious. Matthew 25 (as the title of this post) is a parable about the last judgment in which the only criterion Jesus gives is the corporal works of mercy: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, and bury the dead.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's only how we treat each other that matters.