Every September 5, the universal Church celebrates the feast of Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), a leading figure of the 20th century – she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – and a shining example of female leadership in the Church. She, imbued with the values of the Gospel, became a servant of “the poorest of the poor” – in her own words – effectively confronting the indifference and abandonment suffered by the weakest in the modern world. .
Mother Teresa was an inexhaustible defender of the dignity of the poor and of human life in all its stages – from conception to natural death – as well as a tireless worker for peace between peoples. Her greatest ambition was not even remotely to achieve awards or recognition, but to share the love of Christ through charity and sacrifice for those who suffer: “Love until it hurts. If it hurts, it is a good sign” (St. Teresa of Calcutta).
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The founder of the Missionaries of Charity – a religious order born in India – was canonized on September 4, 2016 by Pope Francis in a Mass celebrated in St. Peter’s Square.
The Albanian-born saint died 27 years ago, on September 5, 1997, in the city of Calcutta (India), at the age of 87.
Poverty and false well-being
Teresa of Calcutta gave a lesson to humanity on how to understand poverty and what should be the way to confront it if we want to end it: with charity and solidarity; just as Christ did during his time on earth. Teresa, because of her enthusiasm and perseverance, can be considered an authentic gift for the Church today: she reminds us that the Christian is obliged to love Christ in those who suffer (see: Mt 25), that is, in the poor, the sad, the abandoned, the sick, those who are marginalized or discarded by society.
For her, the greatest poverty was not necessarily that found in neighborhoods or areas marked by precariousness – such as, for example, the Calcutta in which she lived – but rather it is that which characterizes all those places where Love is absent, where moral misery corrodes human communities, even when there is comfort or opulence.
The typical case of this – and the most dramatic – is that of societies in which abortion is allowed, or where human beings are ‘objectified’ in one way or another.
Missionary, yes, and of charity
Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, then part of Albania and today a territory of Macedonia. Her name was Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, but she adopted ‘Teresa’ upon entering the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, her first spiritual family.
She was raised in a Catholic home: baptized one day after birth, she received First Communion at the age of five and Confirmation a year later.
Teresa entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Loreto in 1928; and the following year she embarked for India, where she made her first vows in 1937. She remained a member of said congregation for 20 years, until God showed her that her path should be different. Thus, on October 7, 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a congregation with a very special charisma: giving itself to “the poorest of the poor” with unprecedented radicality.
In 1963, Mother founded the male branch of the congregation, the Missionary Brothers of Charity; In 1973 she joined the Contemplative Sisters and in 1979 she joined the Contemplative Brothers. In 1984 she founded the Missionary Fathers of Charity and the movement Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) for priests.
Nobel Peace Prize
In 1979, Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work building bridges to bring people and cultures together. She, a Catholic woman living in a country with a Hindu and Muslim majority, had managed to unite the people of India around a common cause: the defense of the human being and her unconditional dignity. The Mother promoted this task with such force that she managed to move the entire world. She made visible the helpless, the unprotected, forgotten or rejected, but at the same time generated chains of solidarity of global dimensions. She showed that speech loses value if it does not take action, and that action is only possible if it is supported by prayer, because only this keeps the fire of love lit.
Given that we live in a secularist world, turned against human beings because they know neither faith nor hope, Teresa of Calcutta dedicated herself in a particular way to helping many people die who had been left to their fate on the streets, not only lacking the minimum material resources, but abandoned in every sense. Death is an inevitable and painful fact, but it hurts more if you are alone, without God, without transcendence, without someone to remind you that human beings are not made for death but for life – eternal life.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta was very clear about these things and was not intimidated by the horror that her eyes saw. The love of this little Christian woman managed to shake hearts and consciences.
One of the most significant moments, in which Mother Teresa was able to show the world this “evangelical logic” and challenge the prevailing culture (or anti-culture), occurred at the Nobel Prize acceptance ceremony. Below are some excerpts from that famous speech.
About what everyone talks about: peace
“…The greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of an innocent unborn child. If a mother can kill her own child in her womb, what worse crime can there be than killing each other?
“For me, those nations that have legalized abortion are the poorest nations of all. They are afraid of the little ones, they are afraid of unborn children. And the child has to die, because they don’t want this child – or one more -, they don’t want to educate him, they don’t want to feed him, and the child must die. I beg you on behalf of the little ones: save those who are going to be born, recognize the presence of Jesus in them!”
A culture of death: neither children nor the elderly
“I never forget the opportunity I had when I visited a nursing home where they had been left by their sons and daughters, and perhaps forgotten… in that home they had everything, beautiful things, but everyone looked towards the door. And I didn’t see a poor smile on their faces. And I turned to her sister and asked her how can it be? How can it be that these people who have everything look towards the door? Why don’t they smile? …even the dying smile, and she (the sister) answered me: They are waiting for a son or daughter to come visit them… That poverty is what we experience in our own homes, that is where the negligence of the love”.
Holiness is possible because loving is
When she was called to the Father’s House on September 5, 1997, the congregation she founded had 3,842 religious in 594 houses spread across the globe.
Mother Teresa was beatified by her great friend Saint John Paul II on October 19, 2003, who remembered her in the following way: “Quenching the thirst for love and souls of Jesus in union with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is became the sole objective of Mother Teresa’s existence, and the inner force that drove her and made her surpass herself and ‘go quickly’ across the world to work for the salvation and sanctification of the poorest of among the poor.”
The canonization came 13 years later, and was carried out by Pope Francis on the occasion of the celebration of the “Jubilee of the volunteers and workers of mercy.” On that occasion the Pontiff noted that “Mother Teresa, throughout her entire existence, has been a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available to all through the welcome and defense of human life, both unborn as the abandoned and discarded. He has committed himself to the defense of life, incessantly proclaiming that the ‘unborn is the weakest, the smallest, the poorest.'”
In case you don’t know what to do with your life: here is some advice from Mother Teresa
In a famous interview, given shortly before her death, Saint Teresa of Calcutta left this message in 1997: “Love one another, as Jesus loves you. I have nothing to add to the message that Jesus left us. To be able to love you must have a pure heart and pray. The fruit of prayer is a deepening of faith. The fruit of faith is love. And the fruit of love is service to others. This brings us peace” (Interview with the Brazilian missionary magazine “Without Borders” (Without borders)).
Happy Feast of Saint Teresa of Calcutta!
Central Editorial
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