Jim Towey

Mother Teresa 'simply loved life'

Even though she carried the burden of celebrity, she had the wisdom to choose 'the better part'

Many people were blessed to be friends or colleagues of Mother Teresa, who had a permanent impact on their lives. Our Sunday Visitor asked two of these fortunate people to reflect upon what made this simple sister so special.

It has been 10 years since Mother Teresa went home to God. Her beatification in October 2003 placed her one miracle away from canonization.

As with any saint, there is a danger of turning Mother Teresa into a plastic statue and adorning her with ethereal glow. In my 12 years of association and friendship with Mother, what impressed me most was her beautiful humanity.

Mother Teresa first of all was a mother. She had an extraordinary maternal love. She listened intently to you as if you were her only child. She cared about your best interests and sometimes told you things you didn't want to hear.

She didn't judge. Mother used to say, "If you judge people, then you have no time to love them." She was thoughtful and considerate and, like many mothers, she was never too busy for the little things.

I remember one morning in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1989. I had attended early morning Mass with Mother at her contemplative sisters' house where she was staying. I rushed out after Mass to go and run the errands she had given me.

I raced to the Missionaries of Charity truck and was about to pull out when I saw a commotion at the door -- Mother had come outside and was gesturing for me.

I hastily parked the truck and ran to see what she wanted. To my utter surprise, she had come out with great urgency to give me a peanut butter sandwich and a banana so that I had something for breakfast. That's what mothers -- and saints -- do.

Love of beauty

I think Mother Teresa's love of God and love of life were inseparable. Her laugh was unmistakable and often unexpected. She delighted in the company of those whom God had given to her as daughters and sons -- the Missionaries of Charity sisters, brothers and fathers who followed in her footsteps. When one of them would come to see her after being away years in the missions, her eyes would beam recognition and delight.

She loved beauty wherever she encountered it. She enjoyed singing and writing poetry. She kept in touch with her friends and had plenty of them. She simply loved life.

Even though Calcutta seemed overrun with destitution and despair, Mother Teresa was a cheerful person. I think that owed to the amount of time she spent each day in prayer. Jesus loved both Martha and her sister Mary, and in Mother Teresa, he found them both.

Within our reach

Even though she ran a worldwide missionary organization spread across 100 countries and carried the burden of celebrity, Mother had the wisdom to choose "the better part." Mother used to say, "If you are too busy to pray, you are too busy." She felt that without receiving the Lord in the Eucharist and in the silence of her heart she had nothing to give the poor or any of us.

In October, many of those who received so much from Mother Teresa -- including her successor in Calcutta and her niece from Italy -- will gather over a weekend at St. Vincent College to tell personal stories about this remarkable woman, Agnes Gonxha, now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

The truth is, the more we know about Mother Teresa and how she embraced life and treated others, the more she, a saint, is placed within our reach. As she often said, holiness is not the privilege of a few but the duty of each of us. If we really want to be like Mother Teresa, we can begin by praying more, welcoming Jesus in our neighbor, and rejoicing in the life God has given us.

St. Vincent College will host the first-ever gathering of Mother Teresa's family and close friends to celebrate her life's work Oct. 5-7. It is in observance of the 10th anniversary of her death.

Susan Conroy: She worked with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1986 and discerned a vocation to their order at the request of Mother Teresa. While she didn't join the order, Conroy kept in contact with Mother and authored "Mother Teresa's Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity" (OSV, $12.95).

In my last letter to Mother Teresa, written just weeks before she was called home to God, I thanked her with all my heart for her love and prayers.

Even now, I wish to say these same things to her: "God bless you every day, dearest Mother. I love you."

When Mother Teresa walked into the Home for the Dying in Calcutta, the skeletal, failing men would reach out to her from their cots and call: "Mother," "Ma." It was inspiring to watch her touch each one -- taking one person's face in the palms of her hands, holding the hand of another -- as she walked down the aisle between the rows of stretcher beds of sick and dying patients.

One of the most touching things for me was that these men didn't know that Mother Teresa was famous throughout the world. They had no idea she won the Nobel Peace Prize and top awards and honors from countries throughout the world. They didn't know that she was celebrated as a living saint.

All they knew was that all the love in the world had just walked in the door. They recognized holiness and love and beauty when they saw it, and they reached out to her like children reach out to their mothers.

Humble and holy

Mother Teresa was one of the most humble human beings I ever met in my life, and I kept writing home to my family and friends during my time in India saying, "She's so beautiful." I have always felt that humility is one of the most beautiful virtues and a sign of true greatness. Humility and holiness go together.

"Holiness is not the luxury of the few," Mother Teresa would say. "It is a simple duty for you and me." We are all called to be saints. God himself commands that we strive to be perfect in holiness, and "God cannot command the impossible."

Humility was one of the many beautiful lessons that she taught us, especially by her example. She felt that she was nothing but "a little pencil in the hands of God." Sometimes she even referred to herself as "a broken pencil." She marveled at how God can make use of instruments "as weak and imperfect as we are."

Even in her later years (I met her when she was 76 and I was 21), Mother Teresa still got down on her knees in prayer on the chapel floor. She was still on her knees washing the floor. She was even serving me tea and cookies when I visited her, even though I should have been the one serving her.

She used to teach us that "we must not drift away from the humble works, because these are the works nobody will do. It is never too small." The minute we give these little things to God, they become infinitely valuable.

"We are so small we look at things in a small way. But God, being Almighty, sees everything great," Mother said. We can honor him by doing works considered inconsequential by many -- such as visiting the homebound, offering to help a burdened mother with household chores, taking an elderly friend or neighbor to Mass. It's humble work, but great work in God's eyes.

"For there are many people who can do big things," Mother said. "But there are very few people who will do the small things."

Let us continue to do "small things with great love," and offer these little things to God. And let us humble ourselves and pray with Mother Teresa that our lives, too, may be "something beautiful for God."

Jim Towey: President of St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pa. He was formerly assistant to the president of the United States and legal counsel for Mother Teresa.

American Catholic’s Saint of the Day

September 5, 2007

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

(1910-1997)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests.

Speaking in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the Holy Father called Mother Teresa “one of the most relevant personalities of our age” and “an icon of the Good Samaritan.” Her life, he said, was “a bold proclamation of the gospel.”

Mother Teresa's beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer and for the poor a model for all to emulate.

Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who survived. 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 sodality and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people.

In 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.” She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and, instead, to “follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”

After receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community and undertake her new work, she took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian woman) she soon began getting to know her neighbors—especially the poor and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits.

The work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, the use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the Order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging and street people.

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.

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