Feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta
Mother of the poor
Who does not remember her? Mother Teresa's photos appeared on the covers of prestigious newspapers around the world, and she met the greatest personalities of our time. But also, with the poorest of the poor, with the poor who, reconciled to their fate, happily died on her hands. Even those who have never seen her with their own eyes could recognize her everywhere. Due to numerous works of mercy and love, she appeared to be a giant, even though she was a petite, slender, wrinkled, stooped, aged woman. She even seemed bent over sitting in her chair. It was enough, however, for her to look at someone, and she became the said giantess, and her bright eyes breathed strength. Her hands, gnarled fingers, twisted and worn from work, spoke of this strength. And also feet distorted from walking, in ordinary, simple sandals. These hands and feet seemed to belong to all people, to the whole world. No wonder, after all, she was called the mother of the world.
Kindness itself
Meeting with Mother Teresa, even if only briefly, evoked deep feelings. Some of them were moved to tears at the sight of her, although the whole meeting was often limited to the fact that she smiled at someone. There was all the beauty and joy of the world in that smile. Some strange, amazing light. Was it her radiant character that radiated this way, or was her life close to God that gave her a charm similar to the one that drew crowds following Jesus? The very presence of Mother Teresa was also a harbinger of a healing miracle for many. She was ready to treat anyone who was abandoned and dying in the street as if it were her God. In the cry of a homeless child, in the whimpering of an abandoned baby, she could hear the cry of a Child from Bethlehem. Therefore, the statement that there might be too many children in a country was as incomprehensible to her as the thought that there were too many trees in the forests or that there were too many stars in the sky. Life was sacred to her at all times and under all circumstances.
From a teacher to a Samaritan woman
Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, full religious name: Mary Teresa of the Child Jesus, was born on August 27, 1910 in Skopje, Yugoslavia (now Macedonia) to a wealthy Albanian Catholic family. Her name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. As a 12-year-old girl, she heard the voice of calling. At the age of 18 she left for Dublin (Ireland), where she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Loretto. After studying for a year, she joined the sisters working in Darjeeling, India. In 1929, she became a geography teacher at a girls' school in Calcutta. In this city, a young nun saw streets full of beggars, lepers, homeless people, unwanted children, people who were abandoned in the streets or in rubbish bins. The sight touched her heart.
After her perpetual vows in 1937, she returned to school in Darjeeling to become the school's headmistress in 1944. It seemed that she would devote herself to teaching for the rest of her life, on September 10, 1946, while on the train from Calcutta to Darjeeling, in mystical exultation she received the grace to leave everything and go to serve the poorest of the poor in the slums. Mother Teresa had no doubt that it was Jesus' desire - His will. She quit her job at the school to devote herself to the poorest. After two years, the Archbishop of Calcutta agreed for her to leave the monastery. She then changed her habit to a white sari, such as that of Hindu women, and left the Loretto monastery. This is how her great service to the poor began: first to homeless children, then to the sick, dying, lepers.
October 7, 1950 Pope Pius XII approved the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity. The main goal of the Congregation is the love of the poorest, accepted as the fulfillment of the word "I thirst", expressed by Christ during the agony on the cross. From then on, everything in the Missionaries of Charity exists only to satisfy the thirst of Jesus. The word "I thirst" is on the walls of every chapel, not only from the past, but alive here and now, spoken to each of the sisters. That is why the sisters make vows of chastity, obedience and poverty, and in addition to them, the fourth vow - to serve in freedom with all their heart to Jesus and the poorest of the poor.
"To wrap the world with a chain of love"
From 1947, Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen. Many spoke of her as the most influential woman of the 20th century. As The 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner she said, accepting the award: “If you hear that a woman does not want to give birth to her baby and is about to have her baby removed, try to convince her to bring it to me. I will love them, seeing in them a sign of God's love”. Having dozens of other prestigious awards from around the world, she did not attach great importance to them, kept them in a cardboard box in her modest, monastic cell, and accepted them so that she could "wrap the world with a chain of love".
She was besieged by journalists but did not want to be interviewed because she did not like to talk about herself. She considered herself "an ordinary tool, a pencil in God's hands." She did not read what was written about her, although she knew that the interest of the media could contribute to revealing the truth and supporting her works.It was said that more than one journalist, in order to describe her work, went through three different stages. First stage: had to see her work. Meanwhile, the mere sight of Mother Teresa's work caused horror and disgust at washing and feeding human skeletons, blessing people dying in great suffering. In the second stage, there was the usual feeling of pity, and only in the third stage was the unexpected feeling that these dying, abandoned men and women, lepers with their stumps instead of hands, these unwanted children do not deserve pity, but are brothers and sisters worthy of our love and concern. At this stage, the need to help Mother Teresa was born, the desire to take the battered old heads in our hands, to hold the poor stumps, to embrace the children abandoned in the garbage cans.
Very quickly, her Missionaries of Charity found themselves in many places in the world, and their work on the one hand evoked words of admiration, and on the other - accusations of the powerful of this world for allowing such deep differences between the wealth of some and the poverty of millions. Fortunately, both Mother Teresa and her sisters found themselves in these places of poverty to show everyone the true human dignity, to fight for it. She said: "Only in heaven will we be able to tell how much we owe to the poor, thanks to whom we could love God even more."
The mystery of holiness
When asked about how to be holy today, she said that holiness is not about doing extraordinary things, but about receiving with a smile what God sends us. “Holiness is not a luxury for the few. It is everyone's responsibility: yours and mine. To become saints - "you must seriously want to be saints." However, she added that the decision to be a saint is very costly. “Renunciation, temptation, struggle, persecution and all sacrifices are what surrounds the soul that has chosen holiness. But if we work for God and his glory, we can sanctify ourselves. "
Did the Mother have any secret of her own holiness? “My secret is very simple: I pray. To pray to Christ is to love Him. Prayer is not a request. Prayer is putting ourselves in God's hands, at His disposal, listening to His voice in the depths of our hearts. " When she was asked what must be done to be sure that one is on the path of salvation, she replied: "To love God. And above all, pray. "
In the name of God
What else was her secret? This can be done in juxtaposition with Princess Diana, who was also one of the people who did good. However, if the Duchess carried out a large-scale social campaign, Mother Teresa did it in one unique way: in the worst human misery and humiliation, she contemplated the luminous face of the Risen Christ. She was a great mystic, not in the sense of experiencing supernatural visions, but in dedication to the Holy Spirit, who awakened in her the presence of Christ so vivid and strong that she saw Him in the poorest of the poor. So, she liked to remind us that what the poor need more than food, clothing and shelter - though they desperately need these things as well - is knowing they are wanted. Poverty makes them feel outcast, and this is what torments them the most. Mother made them feel equal to all people. Her love was like a reflection of God's love.
One Hindu Man put it briefly: Both Princess Diana and Mother Teresa were doing community work, but the difference is that the first did it for the sake of something, and the Mother for the sake of Someone. In the case of Mother Teresa's work, there is respect, love and sacrifice, because she knew that she was doing it for God, for Christ, she offered it to Him, and therefore she tried to do everything in the most beautiful way possible. Working with the poor was for her a constant connection with Christ in His work, exactly the same connection that occurs during the Holy Mass, during contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament. In the Eucharist, we have Jesus in the form of bread. In the slums, He is in suffering bodies, in children. There and here we see Christ and commune with him.
Mother Teresa, in her own way, suffered with her pupils, because - as she said - “without suffering our work would only be social work, something very good and useful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, it would not be part of the work of Redemption. Jesus wanted to help us by participating in our life, in our loneliness, in our agony and death. It was only because he was with us that he redeemed us. "
When she was in the hospital before her death, John Paul II called her. She picked up the phone and asked, "Who's talking?" The Pope replied: "It is me, the Holy Father." "Is it you, Holy Father?" Then there was a long silence, she did not know what to say, and finally she said, "I love you, Holy Father." He, too, did not know what to answer, so he replied, "I love you too, Mother."
Angel of the Poor
Mother Teresa passed away from this world on September 5, 1997 in the opinion of holiness. She died, remaining a sign of the hope that God had placed in every human being. During the "Angelus" prayer in Castel Gandolfo two days later, John Paul II said: " At this time of prayer I am pleased to recall our very dear sister, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who two days ago ended her long earthly journey. I had the opportunity to meet her many times and I have a vivid memory of her diminutive figure, bent over by a life spent in service to the poorest of the poor, but always filled with inexhaustible interior energy: the energy of Christ’s love. […] Her mission began every day, before dawn, in the presence of the Eucharist. In the silence of contemplation, Mother Teresa of Calcutta heard the echo of Jesus’ cry on the cross: "I thirst". This cry, received in the depths of her heart, spurred her to seek out Jesus in the poor, the abandoned and the dying on the streets of Calcutta and to all the ends of the earth.
In her case, John Paul II departed from the previously used rules for commencing the canonization process not earlier than 5 years after her death. The trial, which began a few months after her death in the Diocese of Calcutta, and then at the Congregation for the Canonization of Rome, ended with Mother Teresa being raised to the altars on October 19, 2003 in Rome. The day after the beatification, John Paul II, meeting the pilgrims in the Hall of Paul VI in audience, called Bl. Mother Teresa, the Angel of the Poor, Missionary of Love, Missionary of Peace, Missionary of Life and the greatest Missionary in the 20th century. The essence of Mother Teresa's mission was defined by John Paul II as the harmony of "contemplation and action, evangelization and promotion of humanity." “Where did Mother Teresa find the strength to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart. She herself said as much: "The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace". Peace, even at the side of the dying, even in nations at war, even in the face of attacks and hostile criticism. It was prayer that filled her heart with Christ's own peace and enabled her to radiate that peace to others.”
Mother Teresa's canonization took place as part of the Extraordinary Jubilee of the Holy Year of Mercy in the Vatican on September 4, 2016, by Pope Francis. 120,000 people took part in the Eucharist. In his homily, Pope Francis said: “Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”. She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime – the crimes! – of poverty they created. For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” which gave flavor to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.”
Until Tomorrow
fr. george