On Sunday October 19, 2003, Pope John Paul II Beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta, amidst a tumultuous crowd of 300,000 made up of Catholic worshippers, as well as friends and admirers of the life of Mother Teresa from all faiths across the world. Coming only six years after her death, Mother Teresa’s beatification is one of the fastest in the history of the Catholic Church, which otherwise has a rigorous process in place for the cause of saints. For many observers, the ritual of beatification was a mere formality, because while she was still in the flesh, she had been proclaimed a living saint not only by Catholics, but also by Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. The diminutive nun of Calcuttadied on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87, after a phenomenal life devoted to the poor and the downtrodden and to peace and non-violence. On 13, 1997 when she was buried, the global community literally rose up in salutation for the little nun whose frail and fragile frame housed such a large heart. She founded a Congregation of Sisters who are now scattered all over the world, doing the same work that Mother Teresa did.
Mother Teresa qualifies for the highest place in heaven, for she lived out in concrete terms the admonition of Christ in the passage of the last judgement (Matthew 25:31-46), and taught others to do the same. She fed the hungry, bandaged the wounded, welcomed the stranger, comforted the dying and saved innocent babies that were a target of abortion. She saw Christ in the wretched of the earth and ministered to Him with all reverence. She was a true disciple of the merciful and compassionate Lord. The Church believes that she has now taken her place in the Kingdom prepared for the righteous.
Mother Teresa was a normal human being, not an angel. She was born the same way as other humans are born, to a humble Albanian family. From near total obscurity in 1949 when she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she rose to become one of the most celebrated religious personages, not only in the twentieth century, but in the entire human history. Very few people know that Mother Teresa's real name was Sister Agnes Bojaxhui. Instead, the small and frail woman was simply identified by the fruits of her passion. She was known as "mother" for she demonstrated to the world that participating in the life of God is motherhood. She was known as "the saint of the gutters," for she brought the love of God to those who dwelt in the gutters of Calcuttaand elsewhere. She was known as "the angel of mercy," for she translated the mercy and compassion of God into concrete terms for suffering humanity. She was known as the "the apostle of love and peace," for her life was a powerful testimony to genuine love and a veritable witness to lasting peace. So rich and abundant were the fruits of her Christian discipleship that Malcom Muggeridge, the late British Broadcaster summed up the entire phenomenon of Mother Teresa as "Something Beautiful For God."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta took Christ seriously in the twentieth century, a century wherein humanity had been both the perpetrator and victim of excessive rationalism and exaggerated materialism; a century wherein humanity has been both the perpetrator and victim of crass individualism and acute selfishness that are expressed in the idolatry of self. Mother Teresa lived in the century when the revolutionary ideals of Jesus Christ that are capable of transforming the world from a less human to a more human society, had become for many (even among those who profess Christianity) a mere intellectual abstraction. Mother Teresa lived in the twentieth century when Christ's radical notion of sacrificial love, poverty and humility were treated by many as metaphors. She lived in an age when love for many became a "cash and carry" affair; when people loved only as long as it soothed, and ceased to love when it began to hurt - an attitude that has resulted in such widespread marital instability, high rate of divorce and general crisis in commitment.
Mother Teresa took the gospel of Christ literally, and successfully demonstrated to the men and women of the world, Christian and non-Christian alike, that authentic religion is participation in the life and character of God, and that implies love, care and nurture towards the neighbour, especially the weak and down-trodden. Like Jesus Christ and his uncompromising followers through history, Mother Teresa taught her disciples and admirers to love until it hurts. She taught all of us who care to listen that Christianity is not an intellectual exercise, but a religion of the heart, the heart which is the seat of love and passion. Mother Teresa taught us that love is no love unless it hurts; that love without sacrifice is a mere pretension; and that love engages the lover wholly, totally, completely, and passionately.
Mother Teresa distinguished herself in the dark terrain of the twentieth century by confronting humanity with the stark realities of Jesus' civilization of love. In an age of quacks and charlatans, an age of emergency preachers and prosperity ministers, Mother Teresa successfully demonstrated that Christian discipleship means much more than the deafening noise of revivals, crusades, conventions and deliverance sessions. In an age when Christian ministry has become thoroughly commercialised and when "cash and carry" priests and pastors are thriving incredibly, Mother Teresa's life is a testimony to the fact that the God of the slum dweller is perhaps more real than the God of the ivory tower podium.
Amidst the cruelties and the scandals, the grieves and the anxieties, and the frustrated hopes and the broken dreams of a century of two world wars and numerous violent skirmishes and civil disturbances, Mother Teresa made her mark as an uncompromising disciple of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. In the midst of a generation of men and women who seem to have signed a pact with the angel of death and who are today racing inexorably towards self-destruction, Mother Teresa has left her foot prints in the sands of time as one who refused to be conformed to the pattern of the age.
In an age of widespread compromise, apathy and despondency, Mother Teresa was a woman who stood for an ideal, and who pursued the ideal passionately until the end. She made a choice for Jesus and took responsibility for her choice. She was confronted with the ugly implications of Christian discipleship in the gutters of Calcutta, and rather than look the other way, or shy away, she looked straight at those ugly human frames. She chose to do something rather than profess a guilty helplessness in the midst of the scandal of degrading poverty in a world of abundance. She affirmed the value of human life by helping the dying destitute to pass away with dignity.
At a time of irrational competition for power and control, when men and women are crushing one another daily, staging coups, presiding over civil war and genocide, and sponsoring hired assassinations and bomb explosions, all in the mad desire for money, power and control, Mother Teresa successfully demonstrated that the greatest power we need for our human fulfillment is the power of the lowly heart which is available in abundance within us. Mother Teresa stooped to conquer while many of her contemporaries are daily consumed by their inordinate ambition to rule, to control, and to dictate. As the world celebrates the beatification of Mother Teresa, we should try to learn one or two lessons from her life. Our country shall certainly be a better place to live in if we do. May many of our leaders and people take seriously the revolutionary message she preached and the radical witness she bore to love, truth, justice, mercy and compassion.
October 2003
