God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful.
–Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
We are at Jesus’ disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that’s all right, everything is all right. We must say, “I belong to you. You can do whatever you like.” And this…is our strength, and this is the joy of the Lord.
–Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)
Total surrender consists in giving ourselves completely to God – Why must we give ourselves fully to God? Because God has given himself to us. If God, who owes nothing to us, is ready to impart to us no less than himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to possess God we must allow him to possess our soul.
–Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)
When they have toiled for a long time and have found that their hearts, which long for happiness, are not satisfied in the life of the world in work and sweat, they surrender to the Lord in their poverty, and with this now voluntary poverty, contentment, faith, and child-like love of God enter their hearts. Thus, forced like Simon the Cyrene, they carry the cross after our Lord and are overwhelmed with hitherto unknown graces.
–Saint John Nepocumene Neumann (1811-1860)
