Like many people around the world, we are celebrating the canonization of Mother Teresa. She is a saint close to my heart, and sometimes I wonder why (our daughter's middle name is Teresa, after the saint). What was it about her that made her a spiritual model for my life? Why do I ask for her prayers so often? I'd like to speculate:Mother Teresa was a saint of our times:
The fact that she lived in our lifetime gave me hope, like a light in the darkness, that becoming a saint and living completely for God was still possible in this age. She didn't live in the 12th century or 45AD, but in our lifetime. God gives us all the graces we need to follow. It is still possible! She gave me hope.
She was fearless, and a fearless defender of the unborn:
Mother Teresa recognized the genocide taking place in our country and the world, and called it what it was, in a sometimes embarrassingly blunt manner. I think a lot of people, and Catholics too, will put abortion as just one issue among many, on par with poverty, or the death penalty, or social justice. I used to be one of them, but something changed for me in the past couple years. Sometimes its the 'seamless garment' that we hide beneath. Mother Teresa never hid or treated abortion as an 'issue' on par with other issues. It was a matter of life and death.
She was a 'dark night ' saint:
She smiled when she felt empty inside. She continued to serve and love when feelings of love had left her. When 'Come Be My Light', her collection of letters, were released in 2007, no one knew the extent to which her interior life was cloaked in darkness and the feeling of the absence of God. She considered it a divine trial, but an excruciating one for someone who loved Jesus as much as she did. She loved when she did not feel loved. She smiled in spite of the darkness. She did not depend on 'feelings' of service, but served. This was not a mental depression, but a spiritual desolation. I think very few will ever understand the extent to which she suffered.
She raised an army:
Her initial order started with about a dozen nuns, and by the late nineties had grown to over 4,000. What attracted women to join her order working with the poorest of the poor? They knew they were doing God's work in a world that discards people. They recognized the sanctity of life, and had the privilege of seeing Jesus every day in the 'distressing disguise of the poor'. They drew their strength from prayer and the sacraments. Their schedule was demanding, and called for sacrifice. It gave them something higher to live for.
She was shrewd as a snake, and innocent as a dove:
These were Jesus' own words in Mt 10:16. She was smart and shrewd on behalf of the poor. She moved in circles that would be off limits to many.
She said Yes to God:
Her "call within a call" experienced on the train to Darjeeling (when she was still a Loretto Sister) was a transformative moment. God was calling her to something. He need her. She consented. She trusted He would make it happen. She said Yes unreservedly. God would use her faith to do great things, or as she would say, "small things with great love." This is what makes a saint: to say Yes to God.
She was tireless. She did the work:
Her Sisters were poor themselves. They kept a militant schedule. There was much work to be done. Mother Teresa was a pragmatist. She had little time for philosophizing. She didn't do it for a few years and abandoned the work, burnt out. She did it til her dying breath. Her hands were calloused from tending the wounds of the sick and dying. Her knees bruised and aching from hours kneeling in prayer. She had fortitude and perseverance--gifts of the Holy Spirit.
She trusted in authority and her superiors:
Mother Teresa submitted herself to authority, and to her Spiritual Directors. She recognized their authority as legitimate, as passed down from the Apostles themselves.
She recognized that suffering had its purpose in the divine plan:
She comforted the dying, but often was criticized for her not providing morphine and things like that, but encouraged them to accept their suffering. She suffered herself, and embraced what suffering came her way for the sake of being united to a suffering Christ. She believed in transformative suffering, that suffering has something to teach us.
She was rooted in prayer:
It was said that the Sisters spent three hours in prayer for every hour they worked. They were devoted to Jesus in the Eucharist, in Adoration, in private prayer. They drew their strength from God in prayer. They would not be able to do the work they did without it. It was indispensable.
Thank you Lord, for the gift of St. Teresa's witness to the world, to our age, to our nation! St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
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