A framed print hangs in my office of Mother Teresa and her quote, “Sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty us of ourselves.” I love Mother Teresa, but I often pass this frame, smile at her face, and twinge a bit from the words.

In a mission to Haiti, we traveled to a remote village suffering from a cholera outbreak. I’ve never before or since seen a people who endured so much suffering coupled with such extreme poverty. The locals were severely malnourished following their country’s crippling by a major earthquake.

An image that stayed with me for years from that mission is of a young mother nursing her baby in the clinic’s courtyard. The mother was completely emaciated and nearing the end of her own life from starvation. She was not feeding her child from her surplus; she was feeding her from her need. The baby, just as emaciated, was depleting what scarce nutrients the mother had left.  This was love. Pure sacrificial love and, by Mother Teresa’s standards, “real.”

Some reading this might be in a situation similar to the mother above. I pray for your perseverance. Most of us are probably not. So I ask myself, where is the Lord inviting me to make real sacrifices?  Perhaps it looks more like visiting my mother in memory care for longer visits, repeating the same sentence ten times every five minutes, despite having hours of office work awaiting my return. Perhaps it looks like skipping a much-anticipated date night to watch my grandkids so my kids can have a night out. Or perhaps, its joyfully sliding to the middle of the pew between elderly couples whose hearing aids whistle all Mass, interrupting the sacred silence. 

I am certain we all have moments when the Lord invites us to make real sacrifices; sacrifices that empty us of what we want, to love others more deeply. Sacrifice is not about giving from our surplus—it’s about giving from our need. Jesus didn’t sacrifice some of his Blood, he gave it all so we can live forever with God.

Now, that is real.

Yours in the Heart of Jesus,

Donna