"Love does not come to an end"( I Cor. 13:8).
Just ten days ago, as the autumn sun beamed down on the vast crowd in St. Peter's Square in Rome at the end of the Beatification Ceremony of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a journalist approached me and asked me to put in one sentence what the Beatification of Mother Teresa meant for me. I replied that for me it was the glorification of Love lived, at all costs, in keeping with the Heart of Jesus. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, through her living out in her life the commandment of love -'to love as I have loved you' - became Blessed Teresa of Calcutta because she identified herself perfectly with the Person of Jesus whom she encountered every day in her prayer life, in the Eucharist and in her service of the poorest of the poor. Small in stature, frail in appearance, Mother Teresa was a colossus in our time. She would say: "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, I am 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."
The story of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta's life will be told throughout the
world and the wonders the Holy Spirit did through her will continue to inspire
generations to come. Her decision to leave the relative comfort and security
of the Loreto Convent in Calcutta for the hardship and insecurity of the slums
of that enormous metropolis can only be explained by what she called her "inspiration",
her "call within a call", which she received on the 10th of September
1946 on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling. On that day, in a way she
would never explain, Jesus' thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart
and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life. Her
commitment to the observance of the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity,
and obedience was to be enhanced when, in founding the Congregation of the Missionaries
of Charity, she added a fourth counsel, namely service in love of the poorest
of the poor. Mother Teresa had a blind trust in the God who loved her and who
called her. She began her mission with nothing. She identified with the poor
in everything, with those whom the world seemed to reject and ignore, in her
own words with "the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for". If Mother
Teresa was to work among the poor, with the poor, and for the poor, then, she
thought, she better wear the dress of the poor. So she dressed herself in the
simple white sari with a blue border, the dress worn by women working as scavengers
in Calcutta. She would give this new religious habit a new symbol and meaning:
for her the white sari came to represent holiness, and the blue border stood
for our Holy Mother, Mary. Just as Bengal's women keep the keys of their houses
well tied up on one end of their sari, so Mother Teresa tied a small crucifix
to one end of her sari, the key to her home in heaven.
Mother Teresa had an indomitable will. Once she decided, under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, to do something beautiful for God among the poorest of the
poor nothing would stop her. I personally experienced this determination when
Mother came to Rome to establish her first house among the poor of the Eternal
City. Throughout her life, anything worth doing for the poor was worth doing,
no matter what the cost. She was conscious of what she called her uselessness,
her emptiness. She would say: "Nothing is possible for me. Nothing. I am
utterly useless, like a bottomless bucket. I am good for nothing." She
would turn to God who called her and say: "My God, You, only You. I trust
in Your call, in Your inspiration. You will not let me down. Lord, You are my
strength, You alone. My being and all that I think to be mine belong to You.
Use me and make me worthy of any use. Is it not You who turned me out of Loreto?
Was I not of some use inside that convent? But now, be with me. I can't do anything
without You. I can't see anything. I am groping in the darkness. Lord, lead
me into light. Lead me as you like." Jesus would say to her: " Come,
be My light".
When her work among the poor and her total dedication to their welfare began
to attract others to join her she needed a home from which to work, a home for
Jesus, for His co-workers and for His special poor and so she turned to the
Mother of Jesus with the same trust with which Mary had turned to her Son at
the Wedding Feast of Cana. Mother Teresa recited the prayer, The Memorare, 85,000
times and never gave up. She got what she needed at 54A Circular Road in Calcutta,
which residence became the Mother House of her new Congregation. Her practice
of placing the Miraculous Medal in places where she wished to establish a Convent
of the Missionaries of Charity and a home for the poor showed her utter trust
in her heavenly Mother, under whose patronage, as the Immaculate Heart, she
had placed her Congregation. Indeed, I can testify personally to this foresight
and trust of Mother Teresa. When I was ordained Bishop in Rome in 1987, she
gave me a Miraculous Medal, and said: "Bishop John, I want a home for my
sisters in your Diocese." She came here personally to Blarney to bless
the opening of the Missionaries of Charity Convent in 1996. By 1997, the year
of her death, or should I say her birth into heaven, Mother Teresa's sisters
numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123
countries of the world. Is this not a miracle in our times for one who considered
herself useless and a bottomless bucket?
Mother Teresa's inner call came from a God who loves intensely every human life
from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. She never ceased
reiterating that in every human person, no matter at what stage of development
or in what condition the person is found, there is imprinted the image of the
Eternal God. When the world bodies continued to recognise Mother Teresa's work
among the "poorest of the poor" she would not fail to challenge these
same bodies on the sacredness of human life. When she accepted the Nobel Peace
Prize in Oslo in December 1979 she told the distinguished guests assembled there
what she felt about abortion: "The greatest destroyer of peace today is
abortion because it is a direct war, a direct killing, a direct murder by the
mother herself. Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India,
with the children of Africa, where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition,
of hunger and so on; but in the developed world, millions are dying by the will
of the mother." Similarly, at the celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary
of the United Nations, she told the gathered guests: "We are afraid of
a new disease called AIDS, but are not afraid of killing brutally an innocent
child, are we?" Mother Teresa was forthright in her challenges to the mentality
of the modern world and this forthrightness came from her living radically and
proclaiming boldly the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father, in his homily
on the occasion of her Beatification, had this to say: "Her life is a testimony
to the dignity and the privilege of humble service. She had chosen to be not
just the least, but to be the servant of the least. As a real mother to the
poor, she bent down to those suffering various forms of poverty. Her greatness
lies in her ability to give without counting the cost, to 'give until it hurts'
".
The whole of Mother Teresa's life and labour bore 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.
But there was another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only
after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her,
was her interior life, marked by an experience of a deep, painful, and abiding
feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever
increasing longing for His love. She called this inner experience "the
darkness." The "painful night" of her soul, which began around
the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life
- fifty years in all - led Mother Teresa to an even more profound union with
God. Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus
for souls, in His painful and burning longing for love and she shared in the
interior desolation of the poor. The Holy Father, in reference to this aspect
of Mother's life said: "In the darkest hours she clung even more tenaciously
to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This harsh spiritual trial led her to
identify herself more and more closely with those whom she served each day,
feeling their pain, and at times, even their rejection. She was fond of repeating
that the greatest poverty is to be unwanted, to have no one to take care of
you."
Today we address Mother as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Each year her Feastday
will be celebrated on the 5th of September, the anniversary of her going from
this world to the home prepared for her by God. This evening we gather together
here in Blarney with her Sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, with those whom
they serve, with their co-workers and friends, to thank God for the wonderful
things He has done in her. In a very special way we thank Blessed Teresa for
having given to this Diocese of Cloyne and to the Parish of Blarney an abiding
presence of her life's work in the persons of her Sisters, the Missionaries
of Charity. We cherish you, Sisters, and all the co-workers who give of their
best in the service of those in need, especially the poorest of the poor. You
are indeed a blessing for our Diocese.
In the words of the Holy Father spoken on the occasion of the Beatification
Ceremony just ten days ago: "Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive
woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor
of humanity. In her we honour one of the most important figures of our time.
Let us welcome her message and follow her example". Mother Teresa has been
declared by the Church Blessed in Heaven, so that we might invoke her intercession
with the God she loved so intensely and learn from the example of her life.
If she were here this evening, as she was in 1996, what would she say to you
and to me? I do believe that she would go back to that passage from St. Matthew's
Gospel, chapter 25, which she read on the train to Darjeeling. "As you
did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Mt. 25:40).
This Gospel passage, so crucial in understanding Mother Teresa's service to
the poor, was the basis of her faith-filled conviction that in touching the
broken bodies of the poor she was touching the Body of Christ. Blessed Teresa
of Calcutta directs us this evening to the last five words of that Gospel quotation
and asks us to put them on the tips of the five fingers of our hand and to live
them out every moment of everyday: "You did it to Me." This is the
challenge our new Blessed gives us: to remember that whether we give service
or disservice to our brothers and sisters we always do it to Jesus. May we learn
to serve and to love as Jesus taught Blessed Teresa, and may we see and love
in everyone we meet the face of the Lord who thirsts for souls and longs for
love.
Finally, may Blessed Teresa of Calcutta intercede for her Sisters here in Blarney,
bless the service of love they are rendering to those in their care, and give
us all a deep respect of and loving care for all, especially for the poorest
of the poor, for indeed "Love does not come to an end." (1 Cor. 13:8)
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Pray for us!
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