God loves a cheerful giver

Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under pressure, for God loves a cheerful giver. He gives most who gives with joy. If in your work you have difficulties accept them with joy, with a big smile.

The best way to show gratitude to God and people is to accept everything with Joy.

Mother Teresa

Pope Francis delivering a message at the Vatican

In  the  poor  and  outcast  we  see  Christ's face ; by  loving  and  helping  the  poor , we  love  and  serve  Christ .  Our  efforts  are  also  directed  towards ending  violations  of human  dignity, discrimination  and  abuse  in  the  world , for  these  are  so  often  the  cause  of  destitution . 

When  power , luxury  and  money  become  idols, they  take  priority  over  the  need  for  a  fair  distribution  of  wealth .  Our  consciences  thus  need to  be  converted  to  justice ,  equality ,  simplicity  and  sharing .  

 



Pope Francis's message at the Vatican
 

 

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind.

 

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind.
But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.
Mother Teresa

IPhone Short cut

IPhone Short cut
The  hidden  Web  address  suffix  keys 
On  the  iPhone , if  you  want  to  type  a Web  address  or  email  address,  instead  of  typing  the  entire . Com  or . Org, you  can  try  this  short  cut  :
If you hold  down  your  finger on  the  period  key (.), you  will  get  a  pop  up  menu  for  common  endings  of  Web  addresses  e:g .com , . gov, .edu.

Mother Teresa on Family members:

Mother Teresa on Family members:
Peace and war start within our own house. Let us start by loving our own family members. Familiarity breeds contempt and so sometimes it is hard for us to even smile at one other. It is easy to love those who live far away, but it is not always easy to love those who live right next to us. But Mother Teresa says we must love our family members.

For example:
It is easier to offer food to feed the hunger of a homeless person on the street, but it is difficult to comfort the loneliness of aging parents living with us, who do not feel loved.

"If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because we are not generous enough."

Mother Teresa said "If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because we are not generous enough."

Imagine this situation:
After dinner, we may have excess food and we may throw it in the garbage because:
1) We do not know that there may be a hungry person in our neighborhood.
2) We do not know or we may have forgotten that there is a person that we know who is lonely (lives alone, or family is out of town) and that lonely person can consume some excess food.
3) In fact we may be busy looking forward to our favorite TV show whereby the  thought of giving away the excess food does not cross our mind. 

Mother Teresa on Compassion

Mother Teresa on Compassion
Have a deep compassion for people.
To be able to have a heart full of compassion, we need to pray.
Especially be kind and loving to the poor. We think we do so much for the poor, but it is they who make us rich. We are in debt to them.

Imagine a situation:
We help a poor person with a small amount of money or small quantity of food, the small portion maybe insignificant for us, but for the poor person, that much less money or food he has to arrange, whereby he may bless us in his heart, which makes us rich.

Sunflower

Coffee on the wall

Coffee on wall :---

I sat with my friend in a well-known coffee shop in a neighboring town of Venice (Italy), the city of lights and water.

As we enjoyed our coffee, a man entered and sat at an empty table beside us.

He called the waiter and placed his order saying,

‘Two cups of coffee, one of them there on the wall.’

We heard this order with rather interest and observed that he was served with one cup of coffee but he paid for two.

As soon as he left, the waiter pasted a piece of paper on the wall saying
‘A Cup of Coffee’.

While we were still there, two other men entered and ordered three cups of coffee, two on the table and one on the wall.

They had the two cups of coffee but paid for three and left.

This time also, the waiter did the same;

he pasted a piece of paper on the wall saying, ‘A Cup of Coffee’.

It was something unique and perplexing for us.

We finished our coffee, paid the bill and left.

After a few days, we had a chance to go to this coffee shop again.

While we were enjoying our coffee, a man poorly dressed entered.

As he seated himself, he looked at the wall and said, 'One cup of coffee from the wall'.

The waiter served coffee to this man with the customary respect and dignity.

The man had his coffee and left without paying.

We were amazed to watch all this, as the waiter took off a piece of paper from the wall and threw it in the dust bin.

Now it was no surprise for us – the matter was very clear.

The great respect for the needy shown by the inhabitants of this town made our eyes well up in tears.

Ponder upon the need of what this man wanted...

He enters the coffee shop without having to lower his self-esteem…

he has no need to ask for a free cup of coffee…

without asking or knowing about the one who is giving this cup of coffee to him.

He only looked at the wall, placed an order for himself, enjoyed his coffee and left.

... probably the most beautiful wall you may ever see anywhere....!!!

Mother Teresa on Sin and Forgiveness:

Mother Teresa on Sin and Forgiveness:
When we realize that we are all sinners needing forgiveness, It will be easy for us to forgive others.
We have to be forgiven in order to forgive.
Unless we understand this, it will be very hard for us to say the words "We forgive you" to anyone who comes our way

The more you care about the powerless, the more power you have.

Mother Teresa principle:
The more you care about the powerless, the more power you have. The more you serve people with no influence, the more influence God gives you. The more you humble yourself, the more you are honored by others.

This is how I have understood this principle:
We sympathize with powerless people but when it is in our own family, our own career or our own reputation is at stake, then we do not take the risk and we normally support the people with power.

Often the odds are against the powerless people, they are likely to lose. Even if they are right and in our hearts we support them, but supporting the powerless is to risk failure, disapproval, end of a career, end of promotion etc. So we love the powerless, but we tend to follow the powerful people, we do what is respectable.

However, not every powerless person is right and not every powerless person's issues are important. But some are. From time to time we will discover a powerless person who needs the kind of help we can give, because of our position and our belief we should help that powerless person.
Later on when we look back at our life, we may conclude that fighting for a few powerless people was one of the most meaningful things we ever did.

Chicago Miracle mile

Miracle mile in Chicago

Night skyline on Michigan ave in Chicago

Pebble beach, CAlifornia

Manhattan beach CAlifornia

Manhattan beach CA

Ragged point at big sur California

Ragged point at big sur California