Feast Day: St. Teresa of Calcutta (September 5)

  Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also must love one another.
No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,
and his love is brought to perfection in us.

This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,
that he has given us of his Spirit.
Moreover, we have seen and testify
that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world.
Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God remains in him and he in God.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.

God is love, and whoever remains in love
remains in God and God in him.

(1 Jn 4:7-16)

  Jesus said to his disciples:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him.
And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right,
`Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me,
ill and you cared for me,
in prison and you visited me.'
Then the righteous will answer him and say,
`Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?
And the king will say to them in reply,
`Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
[Then he will say to those on his left,
`Depart from me, you accursed,
into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a stranger and you gave me no welcome,
naked and you gave me no clothing,
ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
Then they will answer and say,
`Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty
or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison,
and not minister to your needs?'
He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you,
what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'
And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."] 

(Matthew 25:31-46 (or 31-40)

 V1:
Give us strength,
Give us hope,
St. Teresa.
As we hold on to the Word of our Lord;
When we pass from this earth to heaven's gate,
May we gaze on the face of our God.

Refrain:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Peace to all the peoples,
Alleluia.

V2:
You have lived
all your life,
St. Teresa,
to feed your people with the bread of God's love;
Cleansed our body, cleansed our soul for the Lord,
when we rise from this earth to above.
(Refrain)

V3:
Be with us,
See us through,
St. Teresa.
May the light of Christ
be our guiding star.
Shine on us, shine on us,
O Christ our Lord,
As we sing with the saints from afar.
(Refrain) 

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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.

Smile through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your Presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.

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. Let us preach You without preaching, not by words, but by our example: by the catching force - the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to You. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My dearest Children,

This brings you Mother’s love, prayer and blessing that each one of you may be only all for Jesus through Mary. I know that Mother says often–“Be only all for Jesus through Mary”–but that is because that is all Mother wants for you, all Mother wants from you. If in your heart you are only all for Jesus through Mary, and if you do everything only all for Jesus through Mary, you will be a true Missionary of Charity. Thank you for all the loving wishes you sent for the Society Feast.

We have much to thank God for, especially that He has given us Our Lady’s spirit to be the spirit of our Society. Loving Trust and Total Surrender made Our Lady say “Yes” to the message of the angel, and Cheerfulness made her to run in haste to serve her cousin Elizabeth. That is so much our life--saying “Yes” to Jesus and running in haste to serve Him in the poorest of the poor.

Let us keep close to Our Lady and she will make that same spirit grow in each one of us. September 10th is coming very close. That is another beautiful chance for us to stand near Our Lady, to listen to the Thirst of Jesus and to answer with our whole heart. It is only with Our Lady that we can hear Jesus cry, “I Thirst”, and it is only with Our Lady that we can thank God properly for giving this great gift to our Society.

Last year was the Golden Jubilee of Inspiration Day, and I hope that the whole year has been one of thanksgiving. We will never come to the end of the gift that came to Mother for the Society on that day, and so we must never stop thanking for it. Let our gratitude be our strong resolution to quench the Thirst of Jesus by lives of real charity–love for Jesus in prayer, love for Jesus in our Sisters, love for Jesus in the poorest of the poor–nothing else.

And now I have heard that Jesus is giving us one more gift. This year, one hundred years after she went home to Jesus, Holy Father is declaring Little Flower to be a Doctor of the Church. Can you imagine–for doing little things with great love the Church is making her a Doctor, like St. Augustine and the big St. Teresa! It is just like Jesus said in the Gospel to the one who was seated in the lowest place, “Friend, come up higher.”

So let us keep very small and follow Little Flower’s way of trust and love and joy, and we will fulfill Mother’s promise to give saints to mother Church. 

From: " From the last letter of Mother Teresa, M.C. to the Missionary of Charity Sisters"(September 5, 1997)