Picture: Mother Hamilton and Mother Teresa–1977
Today Mother of Teresa of Calcutta officially becomes “Saint Teresa” of Calcutta. The Catholic Church has a formal process of canonizing an individual as a saint, it incorporates at least two verified miracles after their death when he or she has been prayed for intercession. The real hallmark of a saint, we feel, is that they have led a life surrendered to God; that a saint knows God.
One of the interesting things about Mother Teresa was her inner life with God that was known only to a very few during her lifetime. After receiving a tremendous experience in God that set her out on her mission to serve the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa did not experience God’s Presence. Not only did she live alongside the poor in Calcutta, she also lived a life of spiritual impoverishment. In this way she was meant to serve the poorest of the poor through her example of living simply, and struggling spiritually while in total surrender to God.
Who could look at her life with an honest view and not find absolute surrender to her Lord in what she accomplished. I have read her critics, but found no real basis for doubting her sincerity and holiness. Even as she lived, Mother Teresa was a saint. Anyone who takes on a greater mission in life will have oppositional forces to deal with; that will be a certainty. And it is not that we should simply accept easily someone’s sincerity and lack of hypocrisy, however we should not lack faith that there are those, even those in the international spotlight, who can rise up to sainthood.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta stands as a world-wide symbol today of service to God in the poor; service and surrender to God’s will. Mother Hamilton, in a Christmas talk in 1980, spoke of Saint Teresa after meeting her in Calcutta, and this is what she said:
“The real meaning of Christmas is giving, to give to the poor, to give to the needy, to serve the Christ in every man even as Mother Teresa does in Calcutta, India. She is a world-famous Christian saint and, certainly, she shouldn’t have to wait until after she has died to be canonized because she is a saint now. I have but to close my eyes, and I see this woman’s face before me–not beautiful in the human sense, in the ordinary physical sense at all–her face is lined with wrinkles, her features aren’t too good. But she has a light blazing in her eyes and a light on her skin such as I have never seen before. It is beautiful. And she takes the lepers, she goes out and picks up the sick and the dying off the streets, and she takes them home to her hospital. And she washes them with her own hands and makes them clean, and she puts clean garments on them, and she teaches these people about the Christ. And each one that comes before her is her Christ in human form. Now, this woman is a great, great Christian, believe me she is great. She really serves. She is completely without thought of herself. She thinks only of God through Christ and of serving him in every waking moment of her life. She gets very, very little sleep. She works ceaselessly. She uses everything that is given to her in order that she may serve her Christ, and her name has spread all over the earth. Still, when she was given the Nobel Prize and they asked her if she had any comments to make about it, she said that all the honor that had been paid to her was nothing more nor less than crucifixion. She had to take time out to come and appear before a world audience to accept an honor which she gave only to Christ, and so she felt that that was crucifixion. That is true humility, isn’t it? And if each of us could be humble in that sense, if each of us each moment of the day, not just at the Christmas season, but beginning this moment would look for people to serve, to serve Christ in them, even until you die serving Christ, what more glorious end could you have?
And I will close with a quote from Saint Teresa taken from a book about her entitled, “Something Beautiful for God:”
“That’s the spirit of our society, that total surrender, loving trust and cheerfulness. We must be able to radiate the joy of Christ, express it in our actions. If our actions are just useful actions that give no joy to people, our poor people would never be able to rise up to the call which we want them to hear, the call to come closer to God.”