Saint Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

- Saint Theresa

We Belong To Each Other

If we have no peace, it is because
we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

--Blessed Mother Teresa

My Neighbor?

Who Is My Neighbour?
"Love your neighbour as yourself" the Gospel says (Matthew 22:38).
But who is my neighbor? We often respond to that question by saying:
"My neighbours are all the people I am living with on this earth, especially the sick, the hungry, the dying, and all who are in need."
But this is not what Jesus says.
When Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan (see Luke 10:29-37) to answer the question "Who is my neighbour?" he ends the by asking:
"Which, ... do you think, proved himself a neighbor to the man who fell into the bandits' hands?"
The neighbour, Jesus makes clear, is not the poor man laying on the side of the street, stripped, beaten, and half dead, but the Samaritan who crossed the road, "bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, . . . lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him."
My neighbour is the one who crosses the road for me!

Crossing the Road for One Another
We become neighbours when we are willing to cross the road for one another.
There is so much separation and segregation:
between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.
There is a lot of road crossing to do.
We are all very busy in our own circles.
We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of.
But if we could cross the street once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might become neighbours.

Bridging the Gap Between People
To become neighbours is to bridge the gap between people.
As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise.
We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact.
We think of them as enemies.
We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do.
We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.
Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.

-- Henri Nouwen

What We Feel Is Not Who We Are

Our emotional lives move up and down constantly.
Sometimes we experience great mood: swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos.
A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings.
Mostly we have little control over these changes.
It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life.
Our spiritual life is the life of the Spirit of God within us.
As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are.
We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children.

-- Henri Nouwen