Mother Teresa has urged Catholics to make sacrifices and practice purity and humility during Advent. "Just make some little sacrifices to show our love for Jesus," she told laypeople here.
During Mass at her headquarters Nov. 27, she pointed at straw and said, "For each little sacrifice we make, let us place a straw in the crib so that by Christmas the manger may be full of straw to keep baby Jesus warm and loved."
"As I have told my own sisters, I also ask you to foster just two little virtues this Advent -- humility and purity. Let us say, ´Jesus, pure and humble of heart, make our hearts like yours.´"
Mother Teresa, recently branded a "Catholic fundamentalist" by a documentary on London´s TV Channel 4, also asked 9,000 Catholics Nov. 22 to make the Eucharist the source of Christian life, with daily adoration in all churches.
Though the feast of Corpus Christi is in June, several Indian dioceses observe it on the feast of Christ the King in November with an Eucharistic procession, to avoid peak summer monsoons during June.
Mother Teresa said she opened contemplative homes when her nuns requested more time to "live in peaceful union with the Lord." She said "daily adoration "has transformed our sisters" in active ministry.
She opened contemplative houses in New York and Washington in 1981. Her sisters now have nine such houses in the United States, two in India and one each in Cuba, Nepal and Sweden.
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