Live, love like Mother Teresa

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Father Dominic Emmanuel [1]

The 101st birth anniversary of Mother Teresa was celebrated in many parts of the world, and especially at the Mother House of Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, on August 26.
According to the tradition of the Catholic Church, however, one usually observes feasts in honour of saints or the “blessed” on the day they left the world to live in total communion with God forever. Thirteen years ago on this date (September 5), Mother Teresa left the millions who adored her, mourning.

Either way, it is worth remembering why the “saint of the gutter” continues to disturb the conscience of the world. Once when her biographer — Navin Chawla — asked Mother how her work would be different from other Catholic Orders, she replied, “As long as we remain committed to the poorest of the poor and don’t end up working for the rich, the work will prosper.”
It must be elucidated that it is not just her work for the poorest of the poor that distinguished Mother from the rest of the social workers and NGOs. The reason for Mother to reach out to the “scum” and poorest of the society was the love she had for Jesus and she wanted desperately to share this love, especially with those who she thought were completely deprived of it.
Spirituality for her was to impart that love to those who had all but lost human dignity. She always said, “Each one has a right to die with dignity, with the feeling of being loved and that God has not abandoned him/her.”
She did not ask people to do mighty acts of charity but to do what they did with great love. That is why she used to say to people, “Let us do something beautiful for God.”
Mother never glorified poverty nor did she curse those who caused destitution and human sufferings to the masses. One of the human right activists once asked her, “Mother you do so much for the poor but you never raise your voice against the social structures that cause such privation?” That was not the first time she was asked that question and knowing that it would not be the last time, she answered, “That job is left for others like you. My call is to bring smiles on the people’s faces by letting
them have the little of what God has given us in abundance.”
Mother drew her strength to perform this daunting task for years on end because her life was founded on her unflinching faith in Jesus which received its daily refuelling from the hours she spent praying, becoming thus a real example of St. Benedict’s rule, “Ora et Labora”.