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Thursday of the Fifth week of Easter

Commentary of the day
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), founder of the Missionary Sisters of Charity
Something Beautiful for God

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you"

Joy is prayer. Joy is strength. Joy is love. It’s like a thread of love that captures souls. “God loves a joyful giver” (2Cor 9,7). People who give with joy go one step further. There is no better way of expressing our gratitude to God or others than to receive everything with joy. Hearts burning with love are necessarily joyful hearts. Never allow sadness to overcome you to such an extent as to make you forget the joy of the risen Christ.

We all experience the ardent longing for heaven where God is. Now, it is within the power of all of us to be in heaven with him even now, to be happy with him at this moment. But this present happiness with him means: loving as he loves, helping as he helps, giving as he gives, serving as he serves, rescuing as he rescues, living with him every hour of the day and touching his very self behind the appearance of human affliction.

Whenever I see so many poor brothers and neighbours of mine suffering beyond their strength and overwhelmed with so many physical or mental ills which I cannot alleviate, then I become exceedingly sorrowful; but I trust in Christ, who knows my heart. And so I say, “Woe to the man who trusts in men rather than in Christ.”

-- Saint John of God from a letter