May 28, 2015 Thursday: Week 8 in Ordinary Time
May 28, 2015 Thursday: Week 8 in Ordinary Time
During a conversation with Mother Teresa the “living saint”, she summarized her experiences by saying: “Father, the poor teach us how to become saints.”
"Some years back, I and a European ambassador visited a leprosarium. It was shocking to see the worst cases: people without toes, fingers, ears and lips, their eyes blank."
"As a band outside played for us visitors, we came to talk with one of the worst cases, a lady, sitting on her bed and moving happily to the rhythm of the music. Obviously she could still hear. The ambassador asked her the secret of her apparent happiness. She searched with her arms stumps until she found a small crucifix. “When suffering becomes unbearable I touch Christ’s body and think: He was innocent but suffered so much more than me, a sinner. Then I can go on and be happy.” We were deeply moved. The poor teach us how to become saints!"
The blind Bartimaeus, too, is an unlikely teacher to guide me a step forward in the road to holiness. He was a helpless creature, a blind beggar. But he “saw” what Christ’s disciples of three years still did not see: that for Jesus nothing was impossible. This blind man also showed what I, after decades of being a follower of Christ, still don’t have – the courage and determination to reach out in faith to Him. I am still blind to wrong attitudes in myself, blind to certain needs of others, too blind to see God’s love and goodness everywhere. I still try to help myself or seek help in wrong places.
It could be so easy! Bartimaeus teaches me that with trust, courage and determination to reach Christ, miracles would begin to happen in my spiritual life. (Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD Bible Diary 2005)
During a conversation with Mother Teresa the “living saint”, she summarized her experiences by saying: “Father, the poor teach us how to become saints.”
"Some years back, I and a European ambassador visited a leprosarium. It was shocking to see the worst cases: people without toes, fingers, ears and lips, their eyes blank."
"As a band outside played for us visitors, we came to talk with one of the worst cases, a lady, sitting on her bed and moving happily to the rhythm of the music. Obviously she could still hear. The ambassador asked her the secret of her apparent happiness. She searched with her arms stumps until she found a small crucifix. “When suffering becomes unbearable I touch Christ’s body and think: He was innocent but suffered so much more than me, a sinner. Then I can go on and be happy.” We were deeply moved. The poor teach us how to become saints!"
The blind Bartimaeus, too, is an unlikely teacher to guide me a step forward in the road to holiness. He was a helpless creature, a blind beggar. But he “saw” what Christ’s disciples of three years still did not see: that for Jesus nothing was impossible. This blind man also showed what I, after decades of being a follower of Christ, still don’t have – the courage and determination to reach out in faith to Him. I am still blind to wrong attitudes in myself, blind to certain needs of others, too blind to see God’s love and goodness everywhere. I still try to help myself or seek help in wrong places.
It could be so easy! Bartimaeus teaches me that with trust, courage and determination to reach Christ, miracles would begin to happen in my spiritual life. (Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD Bible Diary 2005)
