Vol. XVIII x No. 2
FEBRUARY 2006
VOCATION
MISSIONARY MODELS
Express here your views!
CALENDAR FOR THE RECOLLECTIONS AND SEARCH –IN WORKSHOPS 2006-2007
In Manila
May 2-9: Making decisions (Pre-postulancy retreat)
August 6: Human vocation
September 3: Christian vocations
October 20-22: Messengers of life
December 27-29: Mission
2007
January 7: St. Daniel Comboni
IN THE PROVINCES
July 16: Tacloban (Leyte)
September 23: Baguio
October 8: Naga (Bicol)
November 12: Iloilo-Bacolod
November 19: Bohol
2007
February 2-4: Cagayan de Oro
February 9-11: DavaoFebruary 24-25: Cebu
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1105 Quezon City M.M
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to WORLD MISSION
Teresa of Calcutta
The call of a cry
By Vincent Mkhabela
Comboni Missionary
God speaks to us in many different ways. If we look into our lives, we will discover that there are many signs which will bring us to our mission in life: people, books, events, sickness, failure, almost anything can lead us to a new path. Just a cry for help was enough to make Mother Teresa find hers.
On 10 September 1946, while travelling on a train from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa, then only 36 years old, saw a sick beggar standing next to the railway, repeatedly crying: "I thirst." From the poor man’s desperate condition, Mother Teresa received her inspiration, "her call within a call." It was clear for her that Jesus wanted her to be poor, to be with the poor, and to love them in the distressing disguise of the utterly excluded.
During the next two years, she pursued every avenue to answer the call she "never doubted": to follow Christ in the streets and slums of Calcutta, serving Him among the poorest of the poor; this was the direction God was showing her. Because of this conviction, she gave up everything, even her Loreto Convent School in Calcutta, where she was a happy nun for many years, serving as a teacher and headmistress.
In the streets, she started by teaching the children of the slums, an endeavour she knew well; though she had no proper equipment, she made use of what was available, even writing on the ground. She strove to make the children of the poor literate, to teach them basic hygiene. As they grew to know her, she gradually began visiting their families, the poor and the sick in the surrounding, crowded and squalid shacks, inquiring about their needs.
The fruits of prayer
Mother Teresa found a never-ending stream of human needs in the poor she met, and frequently was exhausted. Despite the weariness of her days, she never omitted her prayer, finding it the source of support, strength, and blessing for her ministry. She was a woman of prayer.
SPrayer was at the root of Mother Teresa’s approach to life. She said "Without prayer, I could not work even for half an hour." She prayed in order to become closer to God. The closer she became, the stronger the message of Jesus to "love one another" spoke to her. And the more she responded to the message to love, the more compelled she became to help the poorest of the poor, first in Calcutta, then in India and afterwards throughout the world.
All that she did was a fruit of prayer and a fruit of the unity with Jesus in the Eucharist. She said: "The fruit of silence is PRAYER. The fruit of prayer is FAITH. The fruit of faith is LOVE. The fruit of love is SERVICE. The fruit of service is PEACE."
Embracing the world
Mother Teresa was inspired to start a religious community dedicated to the service of the poor. On 7 October 1950, the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in Calcutta. Many of those who joined her to serve the poor were former students from her old Loreto school.
The Missionaries of Charity began to grow like the mustard seed in the Scriptures; new vocations came from all over the world; and then she began sending her sisters to serve in other parts of India. Later, she opened homes – for the poor, dying, sick, refugees, orphans, abandoned and those suffering from leprosy – in other places. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s sisters numbered nearly 4000 and communities were established in 123 countries.
In order to respond better to both physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded a congregation for brothers of the Missionaries of Charity in 1963. In 1976, she founded a contemplative branch for the sisters. Another contemplative branch for brothers in 1979. In 1984, she founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. And later, the Lay Missionaries of Charity was born.
During the years of rapid growth, the world turned its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the work she had started. She received numerous awards. In 1979, she was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She accepted one of the greatest distinctions for the glory of God and in the name of the poor. To the poor, she was already a saint; to the world, an inspiration and an ambassador of love.
The whole of Mother Teresa’s life and labour bear witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. She once said: "By blood, I am Albanian; by citizenship, an Indian; by faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus."
She lived for 87 years as a symbol of compassion. Six years after her death, on 19 October 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa and called her "the greatest missionary of the 20th century."
The imitation of Jesus
The main ideas of Mother Teresa’s spirituality can be read in the Gospel:
– "What so ever you do to the least of your brethren, you did it to me, I was hungry, I was sick, I was naked" (Matthew 25)
– "Who do you say I am? (Matthew 16:15). In other words: Who is Jesus really to you? For Mother Teresa, it was obvious: Jesus is her God, her Example, her Love. And in Him she has learned to love until it hurts.
– "I thirst". This cry started it all. Mother Teresa heard it and understood it: God is thirsting for our love, he is longing for us; when we, from our free will, surrender to His will, He will use us to be His instrument in this world, to let our love be His love for others. If we learn to listen carefully, then we will be "a pencil in God’s hands". But this can only be reached through continuous prayer.
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