Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once staying with a community of sisters working with the Aborigines of Australia. She learned of a man who lived isolated from the community. Everyone ignored him and his house was disordered and dirty.
Mother Teresa visited him and offered to clean his house, wash his clothes, and make his bed, but the man refused saying, “I’m OK let me be.” Under Mother’s persistence he finally relented. While she was cleaning she discovered a beautiful lamp that the man never used because he had no visitors to light it for.
“Would you light it every night if the sisters came?” she asked.
“Of course,” replied the man.
From that day on, the sisters visited him every evening.
Two years later, after Mother Teresa left Australia, she received a message from the man. “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still.”
The gifts God has given us are to be used to build up the Body of Christ. We do this by using these gifts to glorify God and to help our community. There are no small gifts. Ask yourself what gifts has God given to me and how am I using them? Do I use them and share them? In other words, do I invest them?
Let us all take our God-given gifts, and use them to glorify God and serve our brothers and sisters. In this way we will return our gift to God ten times over.
Pax Vobiscum
33rd Sunday in Ordinary time