34. BITESIZE CATECHISM: ST. MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA & LIVING AS MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY

APPETIZER: Charity is the God-given virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. Jesus makes charity the new commandment. By loving his own "to the end," he makes manifests the Father's love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. This is why Jesus says: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." And again: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands that we practice active kindness and also lead others to doing good; it is good will that fosters mutual kindness and remains unselfish and generous; it promotes friendship and unity.  Love is itself the fulfillment of all the commandments of God. (cf. CCC 1822, 1823, 1829)

MAIN COURSE: Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia, Agnes Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father’s construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his unexpected death. During her years in public school, Agnes participated in a Catholic youth group and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. 

At age 18, she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin and was was assigned to teach in a high school for wealthy girls in Calcutta. But she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people that she saw everyday just outside her comfortable convent-school.  In 1946, while riding a train to her annual retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was clear.  she said that Jesus told her, "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them; to follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.” She received permission to establish a new religious community and undertake her new work. She went to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Soon several of her former students at the wealthy school for girls joined her and with Mother Teresa as their leader, the group became the pioneer Missionaries of Charity Sisters (called MC Sisters for short). 

These new Sisters dressed in blue-bordered white saris and wore simple sandals–the ordinary dress of an Indian woman– something quite unusual back in the 1950's. To us in the USA the MC Sisters look like traditional nuns in long dresses with veil-covered heads, but in India they blend right into a crowd.  To distinguish themselves in dress from other women, they pinned a small crucifix on their shoulders to hold the sari in place, and strung a rosary from their belts.  They soon began getting to know their neighbors—especially the poor and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits. The work was exhausting, but others helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, and the use of buildings. 

As the order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging, and street people.  Before the end of the 20th century there were Missionaries of Charity in every part of the world and this religious family grew to include Missionaries of Charity Brothers,  Priests, contemplative nuns and lay associates, becoming one of the largest religious communities in the Church.  For the next four decades, Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was canonized a saint by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016.

There are many lessons of the Catechism that are exemplified in the life of St. Mother Teresa. But the one that stands out for me overall, and is one which is so much needed by us today: the teaching of Christ and of Scripture that Charity is the greatest of all virtues and a non-negotiable commandment given to us by Jesus. This is why St. Teresa named her new community the Missionaries (which means Ambassadors) of Charity (which is the highest form of love).   It is a title that really belong to each and every Christian: we are all called by our baptism and confirmation to be missionaries of charity where we live, work and socialize. Pope Francis calls this being a missionary disciple.

Charity is hard to accurately translate into modern English.  We tend to think of charity as doing something kind to another person, particularly the poor. And that's part of it but not the full definition. It means a higher universal kind of love that is like God's love as described in St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: "Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.Love is eternal." (1 Cor 13:4-8). 

Mother Teresa called the task of spreading charity "doing something beautiful for God".  And this is what we need to learn from her today as we strive to live our Christianity in the midst of a society that is becoming so self-focused, mean-spirited, divisive and violent.  We need to take up our Christian mission seriously and become missionary disciples of charity right where we are planted. How do we do this?  What does it look like to do something beautiful for God?  Let's listen to Mother St. Teresa!

Do you want to do something beautiful for God? Find a person who needs you. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.

Peace begins with a smile. Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. We will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish. 

Smile at each other. Smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help to grow up in greater love for each other.

I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.

If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive. If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.

Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do ‘nothing’ for you. If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.  The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

DOGGIE-BAG: A little something to take with you for spiritual snacking...

The best doggie-bag take-aways for this week are found in the quotes from Mother Teresa above. But I do want to include this prayer by Mother St. Teresa that is recited by the Missionaries of Charity Family every day...

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. Amen.

Scripture Verse to Memorize: "Truly I tell you, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, that you do to me." (Jesus, in Matthew 25:40)