Joy, Love and Life
Many years ago I saw something that helped me for the first time to see what
life was really about. It was a documentary about the home for the dying that
Mother Teresa started in Calcutta. In it there was so much sickness, so much
pain, so much suffering, and so much misery. Death was there as well.
You could tell just by looking at the people that almost all of them would be
dead soon. By the time they reached the home most of them were too sick to
recover. Mother Teresa didn't create the home to be a hospital. She created it
so that the people who were dying on the streets could have a place to die with
dignity, with peace, and with a feeling of being loved.
It was this love that so deeply touched me. The Sisters in the home radiated it
to those they cared for. In spite of the misery, suffering, and death this home
was a place of joy. The joy and love flowed from God, through the hearts and
souls of the Sisters, and blessed all those who were there. The sick and dying
knew that they were loved. They felt God's love and the love of the Sisters and
they died in peace often with the most joyous expressions on their faces.
It was such a beautiful thing to see and it showed me for the first time that
life really is about the love and joy that we choose and share. Without it life
has no meaning, but with it life becomes a glorious gift from God to rejoice in
always.
May your own life always be full of love and always be full of joy then. May you
always embrace the glorious gift of life that God gives you and live it with
giving, caring, and compassion. May you one day face death yourself with
dignity, peace, and the knowledge that you are forever loved by the greatest
love imaginable.
Joseph J. Mazzella joecool@wirefire.com