This earth is my sister: I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.
When Mother Teresa was asked what would happen to her congregation after she had gone, she is said to have responded:
"A person emptier than myself will come along."
The implication here is that the greatness of a person lies in the depth of his or her own self-emptying. Another implication is that what is emptied of oneself will be filled with the self of God. Poverty as a chosen life-style is precisely this:
"To empty oneself of all that one is and has so that all will be at the disposal of the Lord."