MOTHER TERESA
PART I
A life of service
A life of service is out of fashion today when success is measured by the size of your greed and how well you manipulate the financial system to your personal benefit. But
what gives work real meaning is when it is done in the service of others. The highest station that man can achieve is when he is serving humanity. It is one of the encouraging signs of our times that people are turning against the values of our society that places so much emphasis on personal acquisition of material riches. Service to mankind is particularly meritorious when it involves sacrifice as it contributes to the spiritual growth of both giver and receiver. Sacrifice is the real test of sincerity. It is the test of whether one is willing to put standards, hopes, and ideals before personal comfort.
Mother Teresa
A person who has become one of my role models is Mother Teresa. How did she develop such phenomenal leadership skills that she gathered around her a dedicated group of followers prepared to live at the same level as the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta and who would risk their lives in working side by side with lepers? And all this for zero salary, zero perks, no annual bonus and no golden handshake. It is because Mother Teresa has such superb leadership qualities that she has a tremendous following and created communities serving the poorest of the poor around the world, including places like New York and London.
The Sisters of Mother Teresa
Christine and I have always had a soft spot for Mother Teresa. Our wedding invitation included her words:
You can do what I can’t do;
I can do what you can’t do;
Together we can do something beautiful for God.
In 2003 a friend called to tell me that the Thessaloniki branch of the Sisters of Mother Teresa needed eggs, cheese and meat for the feeding program for the poor that they administered during the summer months when staff at a nearby church took a well-earned summer break. That month I met many helpers, one of whom was a university student who told me that during the three years in the city her spiritually dead church had been spiritually rejuvenated by the presence of the Sisters. As I had several books on Mother Teresa I searched for clues as to why this group of five foreign nuns have such a magic touch. I would like to share insights gained from these books.
MOTHER TERESA
IN MY OWN WORDS
José Luis González-Balado
Gramercy Books New York 1996
Introduction
It would be a mistake to look for literary gems in an anthology of thoughts by Mother Teresa. She never felt compelled to write a literary work, not because she did not appreciate literature or was incapable of writing, but because to do so would detract from the natural beauty and intimacy of her thoughts and convictions. Instead, those of us familiar with the essential gospel message that appears in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–12) can clearly see the affinity between that message and what Mother Teresa said on occasion – precisely because the message was ingrained in each of her daily acts.
Who among us doesn’t know that Mother Teresa’s main objective had been to do all the good she could for the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters? Her feelings for the less fortunate were not arrived at by abstract reasoning, however. All she did, in her own words, was “follow Jesus’ word.”
Not given much to talking, Mother Teresa spoke only when necessary. Thus her words, never labored nor many, were convincing.
The anecdotes and sayings included in this book are Mother Teresa’s messages to those involved in her work: Co-workers, Sisters, and civic-minded groups eager to hear the words of a person who lived the challenge she presented to others.
When young Agnes Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa’s birth name) felt called to religious life, the Church was feeling the strong missionary impulse that characterized the papacy of Pope Pius XI (1922-1939). Agnes, who voluntarily signed up to join a Catholic youth group in the Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in her hometown of Skoplje, Albania, felt the missionary calling very strongly. In 1928,when she was 18, Agnes moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, and became what she had hoped to be: a religious in a congregation dedicated to teach the daughters of the poor and the rich. She stayed in Ireland three months.
In 1929 young Agnes was sent to Calcutta, India, where she arrived on January 6 – the feast of the Epiphany, which means “manifestation” of the Lord! After a week in Calcutta she was sent to Darjeeling, near the Himalayas, to begin her novitiate. In 1937 Agnes professed permanent vows and took the name “Teresa.” The Loreto convent housed the only Catholic school for girls in Calcutta, and the majority of students were of European descent, from more or less well-to-do families. Sister Teresa knew, however, that on the other side of the walls of the convent many human beings were living in shacks.
She could have hidden behind the convent’s massive walls and led a peaceful life. But Sister Teresa was one of those rare people who takes Jesus at his word. She read a Scripture text that seemed to challenge her directly, the one in which Jesus identifies with the poorest of the poor: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Several years later, she heard “a call within a call” and knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. One night in 1946, on a train to Darjeeling, Sister Teresa, in a moment of prayer, felt “aware of a calling in the midst of my vocation: I had to leave the convent (Loreto) and consecrate myself to help the poor, living among them.”
On August 16, 1948, Sister Teresa faced the hard reality of the outskirts of the city, the slums of Calcutta. “Abandoning Loreto,” she said, “was an even harder sacrifice for me than leaving my family that first time in order to follow my vocation. But I had to do it. It was a calling. I knew where I had to go; I did not know how to get there.”
Soon after Mother Teresa’s departure from Loreto, some of her former students offered to follow her. This small group made up the nucleus of what would be a new religious congregation. Mother Teresa assured us that she did not have to think very hard to come up with a name: “Missionaries of Charity – in other words, messengers of God’s love to the outskirts. The people don’t see us doing anything else.”
Sister Teresa started working with those she found first: abandoned children. She picked them up in a park, taught them basic habits of good hygiene, and helped them learn the rudiments of the alphabet. She humbly admitted that “in determining which work would be done, there was no planning at all. I headed the work in accordance to how I felt called by the people’s sufferings. God made me see what he wanted me to do.”
Therein lies the key to what the Missionary Sisters of Charity do and to what their foundress’s total commitment was all about. Mother Teresa was very clear in her goals: to love and serve the poor, seeing Jesus in them. She always left the ways and means to do this in God’s hands.
One day Mother Teresa came upon a woman dying on a sidewalk. Because she wanted to alleviate the woman’s suffering by offering her a bed – a peaceful and dignified place to die – Mother Teresa took the woman with her. This act of mercy led Mother Teresa to open the Home for the Dying, in August 1952, called Nirmal Hriday (Home of the Pure heart).
Mother Teresa later came upon abandoned children who were, in many instances, the sons and daughters of the dying staying at Nirmal Hriday. To ease the children’s plight, she opened Shishu Bhavan, the first of a series of children’s homes that the Missionaries of Charity have founded outside of India. Since then, the Sisters have opened homes for lepers, people with AIDS, and unwed mothers.
As a result of Mother Teresa’s work – which she always attributed to God’s doing – other groups, equally dedicated to serving the poor, have come into existence. One of them is the Missionary Brothers of Charity. When a growing number of lay people began imitating the Sister’ and Brothers’ surrender to helping the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa prayed for guidance and started a movement called Helpers of Mother Teresa. (She personally preferred the name: Helpers of Christ with Mother Teresa.) This group does not help the Missionaries of Charity with material resources; rather, the group’s purpose is to help the poorest of the poor as images of Christ, while offering its members ways of attaining personal consecration.
Mother Teresa had been bestowed many awards, topped by the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Other awards included doctorates honoris causa by many universities, and large cash prizes. She never considered any of these prizes and cash awards as personal property, but merely accepted them in the name of the poor – and spent every cent on them.
HOLINESS
Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God.
Holiness is not the luxury of a few. It is everyone’s duty: yours and mine.
In order to be saints, you have to seriously want to be one. Holiness is nothing else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders to God. Our willingness is important because it changes us into the image of God and likens us to him! Renunciation, temptations, struggles, persecutions, and all kinds of sacrifices are what surround the soul that has opted for holiness.
We should go out to meet people. Meet the people who live afar and those who live very close by. Meet the materially poor or the spiritually poor.
The saints are all the people who live according to the law God has given us.
PRAYER
Prayer makes your heart bigger, until it is capable of containing the gift of God himself.
I believe that politicians spend too little time on their knees. I am convinced that they would be better politicians if they were to do so.
Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were prayer. What matters is being with him, living in him, in his will. To love with a pure heart, to love everybody, especially to love the poor, is a twenty-four-hour prayer.
Prayer begets faith, faith begets love, and love begets service on behalf of the poor.
The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence.
My secret is a very simple one: I pray. To pray to Christ is to love him.
Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to his voice in the depths of our hearts.
I am asked what is one to do to be sure that one is following the way of salvation. I answer: “Love God. And, above all, pray.”
Praying the Our Father and living it will lead us toward saintliness. The Our Father contains everything: God, ourselves, our neighbors.
GENEROSITY
Without a spirit of sacrifice, without a life of prayer, without an intimate attitude of penance, we would not be capable of carrying out our work.
Never forget, my children, that the poor are our masters. That is why we should love them and serve them, with utter respect, and do what they bid us.
One night, a man came to our house to tell me that a Hindu family, a family of eight children, had not eaten anything for days. They had nothing to eat. I took enough rice for a meal and went to their house. I could see the hungry faces, the children with their bulging eyes. The sight could not have been more dramatic!
The mother took the rice from my hands, divided it in half and went out. When she came back a little later, I asked her: “Where did you go? What did you do?”
She answered, “They are also hungry.” “They” were the people next door, a Muslim family with the same number of children to feed and who did not have any food either.
That mother was aware of the situation. She had the courage and the love to share her meager portion of rice with others. In spite of her circumstances, I think she felt very happy to share with her neighbors the little I had taken her.
In order not to take away her happiness, I did not take her anymore rice that night. I took her some more the following day.
“What is a Christian?” someone asked a Hindu man. He responded, “The Christian is someone who gives.”
I ask you one thing: do not tire of giving, but do not give your leftovers. Give until it hurts, until you feel the pain.
CHRIST IN THE POOR
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
Do we share with the poor, just like Jesus shared with us?
Whoever the poorest of the poor are, they are Christ for us – Christ under the guise of human suffering.
To be happy with God on earth presupposes certain things: to love the way he loves; to help the way he helps; to give the way he gives; to save the way he saves; to remain in his presence twenty-four hours a day; to touch him in the poor and in those who suffer.
When we touch the sick and needy, we touch the suffering body of Christ.
We, in order to be like the poor, choose to be like them in all things except in their state of misery.
The demands, and consequently the needs, are the same, or very similar, no matter where we are in the world. In spite of everything, I think that in the West, in general, the needs are mostly spiritual. Material needs, in most cases, are taken care of. Rather, there is an immense spiritual poverty.
Jesus comes to us. To welcome him, let us go to meet him. He comes to us in the hungry, the naked, the lonely, the alcoholic, the drug addict, the prostitute, the street beggars. He may come to you or me in a father who is alone, in a mother, in a brother, or in a sister. If we reject them, if we do not go out to meet them, we reject Jesus himself.
We should not serve the poor like they were Jesus. We should serve the poor because they are Jesus.
LOVE
The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love.
True love causes pain. Jesus, in order to give us the proof of his love, died on the cross. A mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer. If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.
The poor do not need our condescending attitude or our pity. They only need our love and our tenderness.
If faith is scarce, it is because there is too much selfishness in the world, too much egoism. Faith, in order to be authentic, has to be generous and giving. Love and faith go hand in hand.
I pay no attention to numbers; what matters is the people. I rely on one. There is only one: Jesus.
I will never tire of repeating this: what the poor need the most is not pity but love. They need to feel respect for their human dignity, which is neither less nor different from the dignity of any other human being.
We can work until we drop. We can work excessively. If what we do is not connected to love, however, our work is useless in God’s eyes.
God himself guarantees those who believe in him that they will be capable of doing even greater things than the ones he himself did.
Jesus announced which will be the criteria of the final judgment of our lives: we will be judged according to love. Judged according to the love we have shown the poor, with whom God identifies: “You did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
HOME AND FAMILY
Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.
Sometimes when I encounter selfish parents, I tell myself, It is possible that these parents worry about those who are hungry in Africa, in India, or in other countries of the Third World. It is possible that they may dream of ending the hunger felt by any human being. However, they live unaware of their own children, of having that poverty and that hunger in their very own homes. Moreover, they themselves are the ones who cause that hunger and that poverty.
VIRTUES
If we were humble, nothing would change us – neither praise nor discouragement. If someone were to criticize us, we would not feel discouraged. If someone were to praise us, we also would not feel proud.
Who are we to accuse anybody? It is possible that we see them do something we think is not right, but we do not know why they are doing it. Jesus encouraged us not to judge anyone. Maybe we are the ones responsible for others doing things we think are not right.
Let us not forget that we are dealing with our brothers and sisters. That leper, that sick person, that drunk, are all our brothers and sisters. They, too, have been created by a greater love.
It is possible that they find themselves abandoned in the street because no one gave them love and understanding. You and I could be in their place if we had not received love and understanding from other human beings.
I will never forget the alcoholic man who told me his story. He was a man who had surrendered to alcohol to forget the fact that no one loved him. Before we judge the poor, we have the duty to look inside ourselves.
Pride destroys everything. To imitate Jesus is the key to be meek and humble in heart.
If there were more love, more unity, more peace, and more happiness within the family, there wouldn’t be so many alcoholics and drug addicts.
We all have the duty to work for peace. But in order to achieve peace, we should learn from Jesus to be meek and humble of heart (Matthew 11:29). Only humility will lead us to unity, and unity will lead to peace. Let us help one another draw nearer to Jesus to learn to be humble and joyful.
MARY
Mary is our mother, the cause of our joy. Being a mother, I have never had difficulty in talking with Mary and feeling close to her.
Reading the Gospel very carefully we realize that Mary, the Mother of God, did not give long speeches. To praise God and thank him, she said this hymn:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
For the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
And lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.He has helped his servant Israel,
In remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Luke 1:46-55
LIFE AND DEATH
At the moment of death we will not be judged according to the number of good deeds we have done or by the diplomas we have received in our lifetime. We will be judged according to the love we have put into our work.
Life is a gift that God has given us. That life is present even in the unborn. A human hand should never end a life. I am convinced that the screams of the children whose lives have been terminated before their birth reach God’s ears.
War is the killing of human beings. Who can even think that it could ever be “just”?
In my heart, I carry the last glances of the dying. I do all I can so that they feel loved at that most important moment when a seemingly useless existence can be redeemed.
I remember once when, from among the rubbish, I picked up an old lady who was dying. I held her in my arms and took her to our home. She was aware of the fact that she was dying. She only kept repeating, bitterly, “My own son did this to me!” She was not saying, “I am dying of hunger! I cannot bear it any longer!” Her obsession was something else: “My own son has done this to me!” It took a long time to hear her say, “I forgive my son.” She said it almost at the moment of her death.
SMILES
Peace begins with a smile.
When suffering comes into our lives, we should accept it with a smile. This is the greatest gift from God: to have the courage to accept everything he gives us and asks of us with a smile.
To smile at someone who is sad; to visit, even for a little while, someone who is lonely; to give someone shelter from the rain with our umbrella; to read something for someone who is blind: these and others can be small things, very small things, but they are appropriate to give our love of God concrete expression to the poor.
I never will understand all the good that a smile can accomplish.
Once, some years ago, a group of teachers from the United States came through Calcutta. After visiting the Home for the Dying in Kalighat, they came to see me. Before they left, one of them asked me if I would say something that they could keep as a remembrance of the visit and that would also be useful to them.
“Smile at one another. Smile at your wives.” (I have the feeling that we are in such a hurry that we do not even have time to look at one another and smile.) One of them said, “Mother, it is obvious that you are not married!” “Yes I am,” I answered. “Sometimes it is very difficult for me to smile at Jesus because he asks too much of me.”
MONEY
I fear just one thing: money! Greed – the love of money – was what motivated Judas to sell Jesus.
We raffled the car that Pope Paul VI gave me in Bombay. With the money we collected, we created a great center for lepers that we have named City of Peace. With the money received from the John XXIII award, we created another rehabilitation center for lepers called Gift of Peace. With the Nobel Peace Prize money, we built homes for the poor because I only accepted the prize in the name of and as a representative of the poor.
Whoever is dependent on his or her money or worries about it, is truly a poor person. If that person places his or her money at the service of others, then the person becomes rich, very rich indeed.
I once picked up a small girl who was wandering the streets, lost. Hunger was written all over her face. Who knows how long it had been since she had eaten anything! I offered her a piece of bread. The little one started eating it, crumb by crumb. I told her, “Eat, eat the bread! Aren’t you hungry?” She looked at me and said, “I am just afraid that when I run out of bread, I’ll still be hungry.”
LONELINESS
In the developed countries there is poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness in the world today than that one.
There are many kinds of poverty. Even in countries where the economic situation seems to be a good one, there are expressions of poverty hidden in a deep place, such as the tremendous loneliness of people who have been abandoned and who are suffering.
It’s we who, with our exclusion and rejecting, push our brothers and sisters to find refuge in alcohol and become drunks. They drink to forget the deprivation of their lives.
Among my clearest memories, I have the one of the visit that I once made, to England, to a beautiful home for senior citizens. It was magnificent. It had forty residents. They lacked nothing there. I repeat that I remember it well: they were all attentive to the door. None of the faces had a smile. A religious group ran the place.
I asked the Sister who was on duty, “Sister why doesn’t anybody smile? Why do they look constantly at the door?” “The same thing always happens,” she answered. “They are always waiting for someone to come to visit them. They dream of a son or daughter, some member of the family, or a friend coming through that door to visit them.” Loneliness was an expression of their poverty, the poverty of having no one coming to visit them is the poverty that older people feel the most.
GOD AND CHRISTIANITY
Only God knows our true deeds.
Gandhi felt fascinated at knowing Christ. He met Christians, and felt let down.
A man, a follower of the Hindu religion, came to our Home for the Dying in Kalighat at a time when I was busy curing the wounds of a sick person. He watched me for a while in silence. Then he said, “Since it gives you the strength to do what you do, I have no doubt that your religion has to be true.”
In order to be Christians, we should resemble Christ, of this I am firmly convinced. Gandhi once said that if Christians lived according to their faith, there would be no Hindus left in India. People expect us to be consistent with our Christian life.
Often we Christians constitute the worst obstacle for those who try to become closer to Christ; we often preach a gospel we do not live. This is the principle reason why people of the world don’t believe.
OUR MISSION
I was hungry and you gave me food. I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me.
Matthew 25: 35-36
Our work is based on these words of Jesus.
We never accept an invitation to eat out. Would you like to know why? Because accepting these invitations might give the impression that we accept payment for what we do, and we do everything free of charge. I always say, “We do it all for Jesus and for the love of the poor.” If we only eat our meals in our own house, we do it because we respect the poor. We do not even accept a glass of water: nothing. No other explanation is necessary: this is the way it is and that is enough.
For us, poverty is freedom. It’s total freedom. None of the things we have as Missionaries of Charity we have as property, but we have them as things we use. Poverty is our strength and a source of happiness.
If our work were to just wash and feed and give medicines to the sick, the center would have closed a long time ago. The most important thing in our centers is the opportunity we are offered to reach souls.