I was looking for something on St Teresa of Calcutta for today’s 1st anniversary of canonization (tomorrow is her liturgical memorial) and I found this quote that applies: “Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” – G.K. Chesterton
Blessed feast of St Teresa!
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!
Today, Pope Francis proclaimed Mother Teresa of Calcutta a saint.
“Let us conquer the world with our love. Let’s us interweave our lives with bonds of sacrifice and love, and it will be possible for us too conquer the world.”
“we can do no great things – only small things with great love”
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us
Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”. She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created. For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” which gave flavour to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.
Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model of holiness! May this tireless worker of mercy help us to increasingly understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race or religion. Mother Teresa loved to say, “Perhaps I don’t speak their language, but I can smile”. Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer. In this way, we will open up opportunities of joy and hope for our many brothers and sisters who are discouraged and who stand in need of understanding and tenderness.
excerpt from Pope Francis’ homily
4 September 2016