Today's reflection is Mother Teresa's daily prayer, I like it a lot, so I think I'll share it with you:
"Dear Jesus, help me to spread your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my should with your spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus. Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as a light to others; the light O Jesus, will be all yours; none of it will be mine; it will be you, shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do; the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you. Amen."
I especially like the part that says: "Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example." I think this is so vital for all of us to understand. Like yesterday, where you don't have to do anything extravagant to love your neighbor; in order to share the good news with everyone, we don't have to stand on soap boxes on street corners! By simply living our lives as God wants us to, by setting that example, we will save more souls than by walking around quoting bible verses. Don't get me wrong, when one can spout off bible verses that relate to a conversation, I am VERY impressed, but we preach best when it is just through our witness. As St. Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words."
Today's challenge was to be purposefully cheerful. This seemed eerily appropriate because ever since I came home this past Thursday for the summer, I haven't been feeling like myself. I don't really know what it is, but I think it's a mixture of being away from my friends and feeling like I don;t really have anything to do because neither of my jobs have started yet. So I haven't been feeling very happy or cheerful and so when I saw this challenge for today, I tried it. And lo and behold, it worked! Today has been a much better day...I'm trying to just not let anything little get on my nerves as I have been....and I'm trying to plan things with friends so that I don't just sit around the house all day on Facebook haha
