St Teresa –thirsting for God

Mother Teresa & Dorothy Day, New York 1979 (Photo by Bill Barrett)I saw this picture of Servant of God Dorothy Day and Saint Teresa and wondered what they talked about. Did they pray? I wondered what the visit meant to each of them, and what was the lasting impact the meeting had for them and their co-workers. Saints meet saints and encourage others to be saints.

The other day Cardinal Pietro Parolin concluded a homily by remembering the two simple words of the newly canonized Saint Teresa of Calcutta posted in every house of the Missionaries of Charity: ‘I thirst’.

‘I thirst,’ the cardinal said, ‘a thirst for fresh, clean water, a thirst for souls to console and to redeem from their ugliness to make them beautiful and pleasing in the eyes of God, a thirst for God, for His vital and luminous presence. I thirst; this is the thirst which burned in Mother Teresa: her cross and exaltation, her torment and her glory.’

Both Dorothy Day and Saint Teresa give witness to thirsting for God.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!