Posted By scribe on July 30, 2010
…. This revolution of Mother Teresa’s had an ideology, and it was in stark contrast to the reductionist ideologies produced by the 20th century, in which a person’s worth was calculated by their economic output, race, politics, youth, beauty or celebrity . . . Mother Teresa witnessed gloriously to the dignity of human life by loving those who appeared to be worthless.…..
Archdiocese of Columbo
It was in God’s Providence that Mother Teresa’s death was to be eclipsed by the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It is probably inevitable that the 10th anniversary of their deaths should repeat the same pattern, but the nun would not want publicity for herself, only for the action of God, who had used her as the instrument of his purpose, and for her charism of serving the poorest of the poor.
Diana is an “icon”, Mother Teresa is a challenge, a sign of contradiction to contemporary sensibilities. Her courageous opposition to abortion and her support for traditional family earned her few plaudits among liberal and feminist circles, who continue to try to discredit her. She was an inconvenient saint even to some within the Church, for though she saw at first hand the injustices done to the poor, this did not make her embrace Liberation Theology, or to critique economic or political systems. (Which, we may ask, is more instantly attractive: to campaign to make poverty history, or to live in solidarity with the poor and serve them?) She was staunchly loyal to what the liberal-minded erroneously call the “Institutional Church” and to the Holy Father. She had a profound love and respect for priests and the priesthood and showed no ambition whatsoever to enter it herself. Her piety was of an old-fashioned stamp which emphasised the Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the rosary and the evangelical counsels. She seemed to be totally fulfilled in a life of obedience and service to the Church and the poorest of the poor.
This saint of the slums had none of the political radicalism often born of such work. So it was that she once surprised a reporter in Brazil by saying that she was in favour of revolution – indeed, she and her Sisters in the Missionaries of Charity were working for one, she said: a revolution of love.
This revolution of Mother Teresa’s had an ideology, and it was in stark contrast to the reductionist ideologies produced by the 20th century, in which a person’s worth was calculated by their economic output, race, politics, youth, beauty or celebrity. Mother Teresa’s vision of a new world came from revelation. To her eyes, everyone came from the hand of a kind and Provident Creator, and everyone had an inalienable dignity because of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. He was there in every human life, most of all in his “distressing disguise” in the poorest of the poor.
Mother Teresa’s legacy includes her indefatigable opposition to the culture of death. Her opposition to abortion and euthanasia had total credibility, for she had committed herself to the defence of all those whom society rejects or sees as expendable, and her opposition was backed with an unlimited willingness to care for any would-be victims of these outrages. Ideas about human dignity quickly disintegrate in the face of human cruelty and misery unless someone is prepared to give them expression, to enflesh them. Mother Teresa witnessed gloriously to the dignity of human life by loving those who appeared to be worthless. She was not just pro-life by expressing moral revulsion at interventions in birth and dying; her charism was to affirm the dignity of all life, especially the life of those who appeared unloved and unlovable. In serving them, she rescued their dignity and restored their worth. She showed that this dignity which can be outraged by man’s inhumanity to man can equally be healed by the gift of an authentic love. Her revolution was, in that sense, in perfect imitation of the revolution brought by the Incarnation, which confers a dignity on the sinful, outcast human by embracing him in the love of the Word made Man. It was this love she saw everywhere, Christ she saw in everyone. She said she was sure we would all be judged by his words: “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me.”
Mother Teresa’s pro-life mentality caused her to speak of the poverty of the West, to alert us to a crisis of equal proportions to that of the slums of Calcutta. She spoke of the people metaphorically dying for want of love, for want of someone to listen to them, to smile at them, to love them. Her insistence that materialism and wealth have created a new kind of spiritual poverty in the wealthy nations should prevent us from seeing her just as the saint of the slums of Calcutta. We need to see the conditions in affluent 21st century Britain through the eyes of Mother Teresa’s pity.
Her spirituality seemed to owe much to her patron saint, Thérèse of Lisieux. There is a Carmelite feel to her devotion to Christ’s Passion and her understanding that the Christian must enter into its mystery. “Suffering,” she wrote, “is the kiss of Jesus.” In all the houses of her order today you will always find the crucifix prominently displayed with the words “I thirst” beneath it. Her vocation could be summed up as the attempt to respond to this thirst with all the faculties of her being. Like Thérèse, her spiritual writings emphasise her littleness, her essential weakness, but also the conviction that these are no impediment to God’s conversion of the soul. In writing of the spiritual life she is direct and unaffected: “God does not require of us that we be successful, only that we be faithful.”
St Thérèse would endorse her namesake’s insistence on fidelity to small tasks, to the daily round, as having immense value, the conviction that we do not need to do great things, “but only little things with great love”. The terrible doubts and absence of any sensible consolations Mother Teresa experienced, as we now know from the postulator of her Cause, also seem to confirm a spiritual affinity with Thérèse, and should encourage, rather than surprise us. That both of them could remain so faithful and rise to such heights of sanctity is a timely reminder to us of the ascendancy of the will over the emotions in the spiritual life, of the importance of duty. That she was a woman of a powerful will was obvious to those who had dealings with Mother Teresa, the extent to which she had surrendered it to God’s action is even more apparent in the light of her struggles. Displayed in all the houses of the order is one of her pithy sayings: “I want… I will, with God’s help, be holy.” As Thérèse, patron saint of missionaries, never left her convent, so Mother Teresa, famous for her tireless apostolate, would insist that her vocation was first a vocation to contemplation. When asked by a reporter what was the secret of her success she answered simply: “I pray.” The “how” of her revolution, as well as the “why”, centred on Jesus Christ.
At the centre of her life, at the centre of her work and mission, animating and comforting, was the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The expression she used, of “touching the broken body” meant the Body of Christ in the Eucharistic feast. Her day was a lived and practical expression of the idea that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. It would still surprise people, seeing her Sisters at work, to realise how much time they spend before the Blessed Sacrament.
And it is the priests and brothers and sisters of the Missionaries of Charity who are the final, and perhaps the most important, part of her legacy, for they embody her Spirit. Now numbering some 4,000 and working in 194 countries, they are a precious gift to the Church, especially for their consecration to a pristine form of poverty as a radical dependence on God’s Providence and in solidarity with the poorest of the poor. They attract vocations from all over the world, and the average age of the professed I would guess to be somewhere in the 30s. Some of their number have already witnessed to the faith with their lives, as Mother Teresa prophesied they would, in Yemen and Sierra Leone.
The Missionaries of Charity in London are preparing for Mother Teresa’s feast-day with a Novena. There is a prayer at Westminster Cathedral each evening, leading up to a Mass on September 5 for the MCs and their co-workers, after which there will be a festive meal where they will serve the poor. Blessed Teresa’s revolution of love is in safe hands.
Father Hardon Visits Mother Teresa’s House of the Dying in Calcutta
[ Source – The Catholic Herald UK ]
http://www.archdioceseofcolombo.com/news.php?id=100
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