Let us keep this truth before us.
You say you have no faith?
Love--and faith will come.
You say you are sad?
Love--and joy will come.
You say you are alone?
Love--and you will break out of your solitude.
You say you are in hell?
Love--and you will find yourself in heaven.
Heaven is love.
When Mother Teresa was asked what would happen to her congregation after she had gone, she is said to have responded:
"A person emptier than myself will come along."
The implication here is that the greatness of a person lies in the depth of his or her own self-emptying. Another implication is that what is emptied of oneself will be filled with the self of God. Poverty as a chosen life-style is precisely this:
"To empty oneself of all that one is and has so that all will be at the disposal of the Lord."