| Community of volunteers (CO-WORKERS OF MOTHER TERESA) |
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| WHAT IS A CO-WORKER? A co-worker of Mother Teresa is one who sees the presence of God in every human being and choose to fully share in the real service of the poor using hands to serve and hearts to love. Mother Teresa desired her Co-Workers to maintain deep family love in their own homes, and beyond that, to seek to serve those in need in their own neighbourhood, their town, their country, the world. Mother Teresa ask we find those who need us and get to know them personally. It is only when we know the people that we can undestand and love them. She asks the Co-workes to do the "little things", the things no one else has time for. I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prision and you came to Me... Truly I say to you As you did it to one of The least of these My brethren, YOU DID IT TO ME. (Mathew 25 35-36,40) THE LEAST OF MY BRETHREN
GUIDELINES 1. Bring prayer into your family. Love begins at home. You must start there by serving your own family and those in your neighborhood. 2. All co-workers work with your locals Missionaries of Charity: Sisters, Fathers or Brothers nearest to you. Where there are none, carry out your works of love in contact with the M.C. Regional Superior. 3. Co-workers should try to come together locally in prayer, work and sharing with the Missionaries of Charity whenever possible. 4. There will be no office-bearers on any level. There will be no bank accounts for any purpose by a co-worker. All gifts are to be given directly to the Missionaries of Charity. 5. There will be no newsletters or “Family” letters. The Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity will communicate with the Co-workers twice a year. DAILY PRAYER MAKE US worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger GIVE THEM, through our hands, this day their daily bread and by our understanding love, give peace and joy. Lord, “MAKE ME A CHANNEL OF THY PEACE” that, where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that where there is error, I may bring truth; that where there is doubt, I may bring faith, that where there is despair, I may bring hope; that where there are shadows, I may bring light; that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood; to love than to be loved; for it is by forgetting self that one finds; it is by forgiving that one in forgiven; it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen. RADIATING GOD’S LOVE Dear Lord, help me to spread thy fragance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me, and be so in me, that every soul I come in contact with – may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me – but only Thee O Lord! Stay with me, and then I shall begin to shine as Thou shinest; so to shine as to be a light to others. The light O Lord will be all from Thee; none of it will be mine; it will be Thou, shining on others through me. Let me thus praise Thee in the way Thou dost love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach Thee without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fulness of the love my heart bears to Thee. Cardenal Newman ____________________________________________________________________ 1.- The Community of Volunteers: An unforgetable experience: one more of the “familily”. Anyone who has worked inside one of Mother Theresa’s Houses keeps an indelible memory of the days came round there: and we think in the reasons we discover that the joyfulness has accompanied us during all the journey. There are no apparent reasons for not leaving the joy during the exhausting days of work and contact with the suffering, but the reasons are many: the proximity of God, the security to be well with oneself and amount of wonderful people who when we arrive, welcome us like one more of the family. Although the memories of these people are never lost, much more turns out simple losing the contact. For that reason we would like that these site become a “meeting point” of all those that comprise of the family of volunteers of the Missionaries of Charity. We do need your help: This site has been born with the aim of presenting the unbelievable work that the Missionaries of Charity make, and to help all those who want to participate in this wonderful experience. We want to start gathering information related to the possibilities of helping in the homes distributed all over the world and of trying to help to palliate the urgent necessities of these homes through the communication between the volunteers. The way is very simple: Missionaries of Charity Houses in Calcuta are first of a countless number of Houses distributed all over the world. There are many volunteers who go to Calcuta without knowing the possibilities of collaborating in other many houses where there are no co-workers at all. For that reason we want to gather documentation of the greater possible number of informations related to the Homes of Mother Teresa Sisters. If you want to collaborate with us, you only have to send us this basical information: situation, work that is made in the House, necessity of volunteers, preferred qualifications (doctors, nurses, teachers,...) your experiences... written in Microsoft Word format, to our electronic mail. Internal Flights If you are lending your aid in anyone of the Houses and, the shining idea is happened to you of " that it would come well to have... ", you do not surrender, still is possible. Surely that soon a volunteer who lives in the other side of the world is thinking " what will need in... " and if you do not say anything ends up to him buying...diapers, syringes, chocolates... The system is very simple: a) If already you are there, send us an e-mail with the necessities that you have detected in the House. b) If you are going there, tell us, and we will try to make you arrive the necessities put forward to us. THERE IS NO GREATER MISTAKE, THAN NOT TO MAKE ANYTHING THINKING THAT THERE ISN’T ENOUGH OR THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE. The 19 of March of 1949, when the Mother Teresa began her work in Calcuta, a young person approached :-" I want to work with you "-.Mother said to her " Is going to be hard ". The young person responded to her " I know It. I’m prepared ". And she remained with Mother. Agnes was the first volunteer of the Missionaries of Charity, throughout these more than fifty years, have been thousand those who have approached to the warm of the Sisters to collaborate anywhere in the world with their activities. THE VOLUNTEERS OF THE MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY Mother wanted from the beginning to organize through the praying and the work to whom contributed with money, food, medicines and with his own work to the work of the Sisters with the poor men. Mother always saw in the volunteers pleasing means to spread her message of love to God. From Calcuta the volunteers network went extending everywhere. Today those are many that have approached from all the parts of the world and they have felt like part of that work of loving service to God in the people of the needed ones. Mother talked about to them with these words " Request by you in order that you could grow to similarity of Christ, to be true carriers of the love of God and that in truth you soon show Its presence first in your own family and in house of your immediate neighbour, in your street, in your city, in your country and only then anywhere in the world, alive example of the presence of God ". And thus it is, Calcuta is the city of the volunteers . Anyone can arrive at Calcuta, from the first moment happens to comprise of a great family, the one of the volunteers. A family that is daily renewed, which icreases and decreases depending on the season of the year, but which always have eldest brothers and just arrived ones, who will already will become your eldest brother. There is always wellcomings parties, farewells, birthdays or anything to celebrate … spontaneously friendship appears and these new friends will be forever friends. Everydody arrives to Calcuta with its own and personal story, solidarity, alternative turism , new experiences, dropping in at Calcuta…. –“ I just came round to Calcuta...”-. Everybody leaves Calcuta with a common story.
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