Saturday, May 25, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Do it anyway
Let my prayer come like incense before you;
the lifting up of hands,
like the evening sacrifice.
Although she has run into some thick walls, Beth Moore has never shied away from hard confrontations when she’s convinced that’s what needs to happen. In her very popular bible study The Quest, she describes her own “writing on the wall,” influenced deeply by what Mother Teresa wrote in Calcutta (the de facto cultural capital of India) decades ago, as her ministry to the poor and dying in India was slowly coming into its own. Mother Teresa wrote:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
(This poem was found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta.)
 Since September 4, 2016 named Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu from Albania began in 1950 and then continued to build a ministry to the dying poor, offering them religious balm according to their faiths (Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and more). Lepers, often unable to join or create communities of their own, found a home with the Missionaries of Charity.
People were bringing children to Jesus that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said “Let the children come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” And he embracd the children and blessed them, placing his hands on them.
Like Therese of Liseaux, for whom she was named at age 18 when she joined the Sisters of Loreto in 1928, Anjeze was small in stature, like Therese, a “little flower.” Her small body sustained much pain and suffering, opposition, misunderstanding and long years of spiritual dryness – years when her prayers seemed to hit the ceiling and fall back again to earth, unheard. But Mother Teresa’s spirit was strong, gentle, stable and diligent. This tiny woman persevered and in 1979 received the Nobel Peace Prize.
By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.
Teresa is patron saint of Calcutta, alongside St. Francis Xavier. Her ministry, the Missionaries of Charity, expanded to cities around the world, including coal mining towns in Kentucky and the poorest parts of the South Bronx in New York City. The blue and white gowned missionaries continue to care for the dying and the poor.
Blessed are you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
More than six thousand women and men are actively working. Each man and women takes four vows: chastity, poverty, obedience, and to “give wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaks in you. (Matthew 10)
All of us are called to call the world our “mission field.” And all of us are enjoined by Jesus, as his disciples, to keep on keeping on, even when rejection hits us in the head.
Beth Moore is a Baptist (although no longer a Southern Baptist). Beth Moore lives in Houston, and was born in Arkadelphia. Beth Moore looks to Saint Teresa for guidance, as do so many. As do I.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
 (James 5, Psalm 141, Matthew 11, Mark 10)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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