One Sunday the pastor was finishing up a series on marriage. At the end of the service he was giving out small
wooden crosses to each married couple. He said, “Place this cross in the room in which you fight the most and you will be reminded of God’s commandment of love and you won’t argue as much.” One woman came up after the service and
said, “You’d better give me five crosses.”
In Calcutta, India, there is a children’s home founded by Mother Teresa. The home continues to be
operated by her community, the Missionaries of Charity. On the wall of the home hangs a sign which reads:
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY
Mother Teresa counsels her young charges that the challenges offered by this sign can be met only if human
beings are motivated by a love and a respect for one another which looks beyond faults, differences, ulterior motives, success and failure. Mother Teresa once said of herself,
“By blood and origin, I am all Albanian. My citizenship is Indian. I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the whole world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.” (A Simple Path, Ballantine Books, New York: 1995).
It is this relationship of belonging and the loving service which grows out of that belonging which the Scriptural authors called Covenant.
Fr. Joseph Dovari