By Jessica and Jason WildeThe beautiful part of year round homeschooling is that on any given day, I have the flexibility and time in my schedule to scrap an entire day’s lesson plans and follow the Lord’s plans instead. Today, we were inspired by the canonization of Mother Teresa, a Mother Teresa box that we recently won at a Knights of Columbus Gala, and recent volunteer opportunities serving the poor. We spent the day studying Mother Teresa’s life and reflecting on our role in helping our neighbors. We are thus called to translate into concrete acts that which we invoke in prayer and profess in faith. There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of others, even when they don’t know it, are those who love God (cf. 1 Jn 3:16-18; Jas 2:14-18) (Pope Francis's Homily at Mother Teresa’s Canonization Mass) One of my favorite quotes from Pope Francis is “We pray for the poor. Then we feed them. This is how prayer works.” Charitable acts are the foundation upon which God’s love builds, and it is only through these acts that we may fulfill the commandment to love thy neighbor. The physical connection that we have with another person when we help them is God’s love pouring out, and without us as a conduit for that love, the world becomes a very dark place. Mother Teresa spent her life trying to serve the most vulnerable poor in India, but she did so not to help the poor become rich, but to help God’s light shine on them and to keep them from being lonely. She is frequently quoted in saying that “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved” The Catholic Church is not at a loss of words for helping the poor. To begin with, in order to fulfill the beatitude “Blessed are the Merciful”, we must perform corporal works of mercy, over half of which are directly helping the poor. And, being corporal (meaning ‘of the body’) works, we are told not to merely pray for the poor, but to physically help them! “If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?” (CCC 2447). Finally, CCC 2446 quotes St. John Chrysostom - “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.” So, by passing by that beggar or homeless person on the corner of the street, we are actually committing a sin against life. Helping those in need is not just something you do to be nice and compassionate - it is a duty and obligation of us as Christians. And it is with this mindset that we always keep Mother Teresa bags in our car in order to serve those whom we meet on the roads of life.
Next stop, reaching out, meeting the poor, and sharing our riches with the poor.
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On a MissionTwo passionate parents and their four children are excited to bring His Word to everyone in need while living a life of Gospel poverty as missionaries. They invite you to join them on a journey to encounter our global neighbors that Jesus commands us to love through works of charity and service. Archives
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