Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today.
James Chapter 2
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
17 So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 Indeed someone may say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.
26 For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
An Urgent Need
Mother Teresa tells us beautifully how serving the poor gives us peace. We all can grow in faith by loving our neighbors, and peace will find us along the way.
“The fruit of silence is prayer,
the fruit of prayer is faith,
the fruit of faith is love,
the fruit of love is service,
the fruit of service is peace.”
Join us. Let us do works of mercy together. Project: Finding Calcutta exists to offer service opportunities easily and consistently. A few hours on a Saturday morning once a month is not that much of a burden to you, especially when all the planning and logistics are already taken care of by us.
There is an urgency here. If you read the news, you will realize how desperate people are getting to find love and attention. Mother Teresa points out that we have a different kind of poverty here in the US. You and I can do something about it. And it’s a beautiful witness for our children to learn kindness and generosity from us. So let us begin.
“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love as there is a hunger for God.”
If you are not able to do works of mercy to the poor on the streets, find someone to love behind the closed doors of your own home. If you take a good look at all your relationships, you will quickly find someone that would like your attention. It could be your spouse, child, parent, sibling or a roommate. Reach out to them, love them, make a gift of yourself to them. You can do the same with your fellow students, colleagues or just the people that you encounter frequently in your daily life. Every wasted opportunity could lead them into more loneliness. Which is why Mother Teresa said,
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”