“This is our calling…”

Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to spend a wonderful and truly blessed weekend with our brothers and sisters in Singles for Christ. It was the “Covenant Orientation Weekend”. I am ever thankful to the Lord that He allowed my weekend to be free and be able to attend and do my SFC CO (finally!). I was then invited to speak about our calling as “Champions of the Poor”; on how to love and serve our less fortunate brothers and sisters. It was a truly humbling experience for myself to be reminded on what it is that we are called to do.

During the session, I shared about an incident that had happened to me a couple of weeks back. I was on my way home, waiting for my metro to arrive, when there was this sister, unhesitant in asking each person if they had some change to give. I was eating an orange, she looked at me, I just smiled at her, nodded, and that was it. It was about one minute until my metro arrived. The few seconds of what just happened flashed before my eyes. “She was looking at my orange. She was looking at my orange.” It might sound funny but this was all I could think of. My metro came and I froze. I couldn’t move. “My metro’s here!” I told myself. But then, I stayed. My metro left. I looked around if the sister was still there. I saw her by the escalators, and then I decided to come up to her and I asked her, “Are you hungry?”. Her face lit up, and she said “Yes”. I told her that I didn’t have any change with me but we can go to the café just upstairs. She then asked me, “Can I get a sandwich?” I told her “You can have anything that you want”. She was almost running heading to the café. She went ahead to the sandwich corner. She then asked me, “Can I have this?” Showing me her turkey sandwich wrap and a can of coke. (I wanted to tell her to maybe just get water because it’s healthier hehe) But all jokes aside, she showed me once again if I what she had in her hands were okay. She wanted to get my approval for the food that she was about to eat. I paid for her food, she took them and told me, “Thank you. Merci. Bonne journée. Have a good day”. I went back to where I was to wait for my metro and I saw the sister again. She was showing the metro performers the food that she had on her hands and started eating with a smile.

My metro came at once but as fast as the speed that the metro was travelling, the memory of what just happened did not leave my thoughts that fast. I had to process what had happened. This truly struck me straight to the heart. As a student, I may not have a lot but I know that I have more than enough. (No one is too poor to not share. No one is too rich to not care.) It hurts to know that the sister in the metro had to ask permission if she could even eat. She even had to ask permission on what she was allowed to eat. She was willing to eat scraps and on the other hand, we are willing to give her scraps. This is simply unjust. We are called to bring humanity and self-respect to our brothers and sisters from all walks of life. We shall do it with much joy and great hope in our hearts. As Mother Teresa had said “God loves a cheerful giver. If you don’t go to the people with a cheerful face, you only increase their darkness and their miseries and their sorrows”. We are called to remind each other of the majestic masterpiece within us. I recalled the moments that I may have neglected my brothers and sisters in Christ, purposely or not. We are called for a mission to love but I am guilty that there may have been moments in my life that what I did may have been an act of omission of love. Each moment of our lives, we may have passed our less fortunate brothers and sisters. We are called to be more than just passers by. We are called to do, to share, to love, to live and give life. This sister reminded me of my calling as a daughter of God, a sister in Christ. We are called to pray for each other, acknowledge each other, love each other, to bring life to one another. Let us not let any time pass. Let us do the work and claim and proclaim His glory. Let us remind each other constantly and incessantly of our worth as God’s beautiful masterpieces.
We are called to be and bring Christ wherever we are.

One of Mother Teresa’s colleagues shared, “She didn’t look at the masses of people, she looked at one face, one smile, one heart, one person at time.” Let us do the same!

God bless us always.
Peace and Love.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen