Meditation Monday----cancer of the heart

A soul that is humble and sincere......will never stoop to criticism, which in spiritual life is called "cancer of the heart."  It eats up all the love of God, all the energy we have for God's interests.  It is also most infectious.  Let one sister start criticizing and in a short time we shall have two, four, eight, ten, following........

A truly generous soul must never stoop to criticism.  As a rule, people that criticize never do it openly, but go about doing it in a whisper.  That is a sin.  Today when you go before the Blessed Sacrament, ask Jesus to preserve you from the cancer of criticism.  Criticism is not a failure, not a human weakness----it is something that touches the heart.  Should we have given way to it at times, let us resolve to avoid it and beg Christ to preserve us.  To keep free of criticism, we must be humble.
                                                                     
                                                                                                                         -Mother Teresa