compassion, tuesday

Tuesday, August 11

Opening Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

     Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.  Flood our souls with your Spirit and life.  Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.  Shine through us and so be in us that every soul we come I contact with may feel your presence in our soul.  Let them look up and see no longer us but only You.  Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be light to others.  The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.  None of it will be ours.  It will be you shining on others through us.  Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.  Amen.  (The Daily Prayer of Mother Teresa)

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46

Journal: Where do you see the least of these around you?  What are you doing to be Jesus to them?  Because in some mysterious way, what we do to them, we do to Jesus.

Reflection:

 

The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action. 

   And that action is our wholehearted and free service

        —the gift to the poorest of the poor—

   to Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor. 

        If we pray the work...

             if we do it to Jesus

             if we do it for Jesus

             if we do it with Jesus...

        that's what makes us content

   That is why I feel the Missionaries of Charity are real contemplatives in the heart of the world

           I do this because I believe I am doing it for Jesus.

           I am very sure that this is his work

           I am very sure.

           I am very sure that it is he and not me.

(Seeking the Heart of God by Mother Teresa)

Prayers

Closing Prayer: Lord God, we confess: our lifestyles are too busy, our focus self-centered, and our world is consumed with fear, greed, and pride.  Sometimes, Lord, we react to the pains of others with a flippant "who cares?"  Yet, in our more receptive times, when Your Voice calls to our innermost beings, we know with absolute certainty two things we desperately need: To be loved…and to love.  Hear us, Lord, grateful, thankful to experience occasional breakthrough moments of unconditional love.  Be with those whose hearts are broken, demoralized by life's blows; those who mirror to us that unfairness and suffering is not lightened by pat answers or avoidance, but is made bearable because of fellow travelers who truly do care, and show it.  Walk with us, God.  Our trek is not always easy, our vision shortsighted, our love often hidden.  May we seek the deeper places where our compassion, our joy reflect You, the God who is Love.  Amen. ~Virgil Fry