Been thinking a lot about poverty the past couple of days.
Jesus is nowhere more revelatory than when he's saying "A is like B." It's so rational, in the most literal sense of the word. In the case of poverty, we have Christ's own word for it that he's mysteriously present in the poor and suffering. It's no small revelation that we're called to serve such. But it's even more awesome to consider what's implied by our own vocations (such as they are) to poverty or suffering -- for these are vocations not just to serve Christ, but to let him live in us; ultimately, to find our lives in him. This takes us way past the concept of Christianity as morality -- a mode of acting -- and introduces us to Christianity as a mode of being.
Somehow, "offer it up" with its transactional odor fails to convey the existential import of what suffering is for. With all meaning grounded in the eternal Logos, and knowing that his suffering is a revelation of his self-emptying love, we realise that our suffering makes no sense -- cannot make sense -- unless it too is grounded in the Logos who imparts redemptive meaning even to torture and death.
Mother Teresa's every small service of the poor, redeeming poverty and suffering from chaotic senselessness, was a small icon of the Resurrection.
Great post. Mother Theresa not only defends and explains the celibate priesthood, but informs all of us what being a Christian might be like.