March 2014
Universal: That all cultures may respect the rights and dignity of women.
For Evangelization: That many young people may accept the Lord’s invitation to consecrate their lives to proclaiming the Gospel.
Tuesday of the Eighth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), founder of the Missionary Sisters of Charity
No Greater Love, p. 95-96
Leaving everything to follow him
Riches, both material and spiritual, can choke you if you do not use them fairly. For not even God can put anything in a heart that is already full. One day there springs up the desire for money and for all that money can provide - the superfluous, luxury in eating, luxury in dressing, trifles. Needs increase because one thing calls for another. The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction. Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.
Our Lord gives us a living example: From the very first day of His human existence He was brought up in a poverty which no human being will ever be able to experience, because "being rich He made Himself poor" (2Cor 8,9). Christ being rich emptied Himself. This is where the contradiction lies. If I want to be poor like Christ, who became poor even though He was rich, I must do the same. It would be a shame for us to be richer than Jesus, who for our sake endured poverty.
On the cross Christ was deprived of everything. The cross itself had been given Him by Pilate; nails and the crown, by the soldiers. He was naked. When He died He was stripped of the cross, the nails, and the crown. He was wrapped in a piece of canvas donated by a charitable soul, and He was buried in a tomb that did not belong to Him. Despite all that, Jesus could have died like a king and could even have been spared death. He chose poverty because He knew that it was the genuine means to possess God and to bring His love to the
earth.