“With regard to God, our poverty is our humble recognition and acceptance of our sinfulness, helplessness, and utter nothingness, and the acknowledgement of our neediness before Him, which expresses itself as hope in Him, as an openness to receive all things from Him as our Father.

Our poverty should be true gospel poverty-gentle, tender, glad and openhearted, always ready to give an expression of love. Poverty is love before it is renunciation. To love, it is necessary to give. To give, it is necessary to be free from selfishness.” ~Mother Teresa

I cannot love because I cannot give. I cannot give because I am not free from my selfishness. Father, help me for I cannot even claim to be your child for what I have become.