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Newsletter
No.6
December 2003
MOTHER TERESA
God’s
Icon of Love of the Poorest of the Poor.
Fr Paul Chetcuti
S.J. knew Mother Teresa personally and became familiar with
her spirit, her work and herself as a person.
He has written a booklet with his personal
reflections about Mother.
We are presenting here some extracts from this
booklet.
Faith
and Prayer
In all things Mother anchored herself in
Faith…Faith in God as a loving Father.
I once asked her what she experienced and how she felt
during prayer. She looked
up at me and simply said: "Nothing, Father! I feel
nothing. But I know that He is there!" She was so
thirsty for God. And yet so humble about it that she would constantly seek help
to get closer to him. One
day she really embarrassed me when, during one particularly
intimate conversation, she asked me: "Father, teach me
how to pray!"
She believed with all her heart that all that was going on
in her and through her was the work of God.
"How God can do great things with
nothing..." she would exclaim whilst describing the
expansion of her work, the founding of new houses in various
countries. The love of God was the fundamental reality that animated
Mother in all that she was and all that she did. "Let
us do something beautiful for God" was her constant
motto and exhortation. "Pray
for me that I will not ruin God's work" was another
constant appeal.
She anchored her relationship with God in a total, absolute
commitment to Jesus
and most particularly to Jesus in the Eucharist. She saw the Eucharist as the focal point of this relationship
and as the norm to guide all relationships.
"Touch the poor as the priest touches the host
during Mass", she would tell her Sisters. The
centrality of the Eucharist was so fundamental to her that
she would describe the hour of daily adoration that her
Sisters spend in front of the Blessed Sacrament as the
“greatest gift that God gave to the her Society…The
Missionaries of Charity.
Her devotion to Mary was indescribable. Mary was everything:
the constant loving
presence, the support, refuge, point of reference, model,
tender mother, source of peace and joy for her. She
firmly believed in the force of intercession of Our Lady.
Even in small things she would confide herself totally to
her.
Her
Charity
The love of God was
forcefully translated by Mother into love of neighbour.
In her dealings with others Mother was always tender,
loving, kind and yet forceful,
determined and practical.
She accepted everyone without distinction and at the cost of
great personal sacrifice she was available to one and all
unconditionally. Never
have I met a person so ready to let the other dictate the
terms of a relationship or of a service needed. She
seemed to be at the mercy of those who needed her or asked
for her, irrespective of time, energy or any other
circumstance…"If they ask for me, it is a sign that
they need me!" And
yet her availability and readiness to serve was never
patronising or even remotely possessive. It
was indeed a free service given.
She would always indicate the good in people. Indeed
it was her charism to bring out the good in people. She
would seek immediately to turn her concern into action. For Mother everyone was a brother or a sister. She
was neither impressed by the mighty ones of this world nor
inhibited by the powerful. Her great gift was to move beyond titles and offices to go
straight to the heart of the person.
She was at ease with the rich and the poor alike,
with the great and the little ones, with the old and the
young. Her love was universal.
Holiness
What always struck
me was the deep and inner peace with which she would accept
all events, whether pleasant or unpleasant.
For her "Holiness is to open one's hands and
receive what Jesus gives and giving what Jesus takes with a
smile." One thing that I felt was outstanding and a real mark of
holiness was the fact the she always put persons first and
she gave anybody she met total freedom to be himself or
herself. She would never force anybody to act different because she was
present. She
would never judge a person and never identify a person with
his actions. She had the gift of seeing the positive and the beautiful
elements in each person.
Mother's strength
came from her deep attachment to God and her total and
unconditional dependence on his love.
She had to face many difficulties and even much
opposition. Yet
she remained always faithful to her initial inspiration and
God-given charism.
Holiness that accompanied Mother through her life was very
much a result of this “doing ordinary things with
extraordinary love”. People
sensed that her way of living transformed the most humble
tasks into great acts of love toward God and towards one's
neighbour. Her
holiness could be seen in the way she listened to people,
the way she handled a sick child, the way she prayed, the
way she received Communion. Everything radiated the presence
of the Spirit of God in simplicity and humble expression. She made holiness reachable and attainable even to the
weakest among us…”holiness is a simple duty”.
Her witness to holiness was not so much attached to
extraordinary signs and wonders. There were occasions, of course, when her intervention made
things which seemed impossible to actually take place - the
granting of a piece of land or a house for a particular
work, the fact that so many young people were attracted to
her way of life and her work, the fact that God blessed her
work with such a wide expansion and growth in such a
relatively short time... All this and much more were the
effects of her attachment to God and her total abandonment
to him.
Fr Paul Chetcuti sj
Ignatian Maxims (5)
21. The
more you bind yourself to God our Lord and show yourself
more generous towards His Divine Majesty, the more will you
find God more generous towards yourself and the more
disposed will you be
to receive graces and spiritual gifts which are greater each
day.
(Constit S.I. p. III, c.1 [282})
22. One
should not speak’ idle words’, by which I understand
those of no profit to either myself or to others, and those
not directed to that end. Consequently to speak about
anything that benefits or seeks to benefit my own soul or my
neighbour’s, or that is for the good of the body or for
temporal welfare, is never idle.
(Spir. Ex. n.40)
23. If one
wants to work with one’s brethren to win them over to God,
one has to be convinced that one is working in a corrupt
world. Working in mud and not in gold and loathing the
corruption some people are steeped in should not scare you
or withdraw you
from helping those in need.
(Bartoli, I. VI, n.36, p.404)
24. To win
others over to God, we have to do what the devil usually
does: he inters the heart and tries to find what’s going
on and then he ingratiates himself with that person.
(Gregorius Rosephius,sj Promptuarium, MI, Font. Narr.)
25. Where
there are partisan factions or divisions do not take against
anyone, but keep neutral and show that you love both the one
and the other.
(Letter
to Salmerón, Jay, Canisius, 24 Sept. 1549)
Fr.
Arthur Vella SJ
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