Mother Teresa offers us that brilliant glimpse of hope that lies in little things: "We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into doing it." Above our front door, we have hung a sign that says, "Today . . . small things with great love (or don't open the door).

When organized religion organizes around the things Jesus would be pleased with, amazing things can happen.

It is not what we do, it is how much love we put in the doing.

Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.

When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.

Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared -- an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about.

God is not satisfied with appearance. God wants the garment of justice. God wants his Christians dressed in love.

Just love the one in front of you. Take in the orphan, take in the widow. Just love the one in front of you.

The performance of an action is worthless in itself, if it is not done out of charity. Charity must be our motive; then everything we do, however little and insignificant, bears a rich harvest. After all, what God takes into account is not so much the thing we do, as the love that went to the doing of it.

Love', in the early Christian sense, is something you do, giving hospitality and practical help to those in need, particularly to other Christians who are poor, sick or hungry.

Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet.

Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting.