THE POOR CAN TEACH US

(thoughtful)

We have homes for the sick and dying...in Australia, England, Africa,the Middle East, India, Latin America, Europe.

In some places we don't have a home for the dying destitutes, but we have numerous shut-ins whose homes are really homes for the dying--- where people die as a number, not as human beings with dignity. When they die,sometimes nobody even knows their names.

What great poverty! Are we aware of that? Do we know what fear is?
Do we know the lonely? And the sick? Do we know the unwanted and the unloved? Do we know the hungry? Do we really know what hunger is?

I'll give you an example of what hunger is. A child got a piece of bread from a Sister. (He had not eaten for some time.) I saw that child eating the bread slowly, crumb by crumb. I said to him, "I know you are hungry. Why don't you eat the bread up?"

The little one answered, "I want it to last longer!"
He was afraid that when he finished the bread, his hunger would come back again. And so he ate it crumb by crumb!

The child next to him was not even eating. I thought that he had finished his bread. But the little one said, "My father is sick, I'm very hungry, but my father is sick, and I think he would love to have this piece of bread."

That good little child was willing to go without food to be able to give his father the joy of having a little piece of bread. The poor are great people!. They aren't asking us to feel sorry for them...they deserve our love. By Mother Teresa, "The Heart of Joy" (excerpts)

Shared by Joe Gatuslao