From my book A Calendar of Classic Prayer, here are wonderful words speaking of shining a light, and they come from someone who unquestionably did just that. I’m referring to Mother Teresa (1910–97), winner of the 1979 Nobel peace prize and legendary worker among the poor of Calcutta. Few people have made such an impact on public consciousness yet few could have been more unassuming than this amazing nun who devoted so much of her life to others. If only we could pray her words and mean them, what a difference we would make to our world today.
Dear Jesus,
help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly
that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us and be so in us
that every soul we come in contact with may feel
your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus.
Stay with us
and then we shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.
None of it will be ours.
It will be you shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching,
not by words, but by our example;
by the catching force –
the sympathetic influence of what we do,
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.
Amen.