THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: Offaly columnist remembers St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

This week, as we mark the anniversary of the death of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, our hearts turn toward a woman who dared to take the Gospel at its word and live it in the streets and gutters of our world. She challenges us to see beyond comfort and convenience. She reminds us that every person we meet, especially the poor, the sick, the lonely, the homeless, the addict, the refugee and the forgotten carries the face of Christ.

The question is, will we have the courage to 'love until it costs?' Known as the “Saint of the Gutters,” she spent her life in the back alleys of Calcutta and beyond, touching those the world had cast aside. She picked up the dying from garbage bins, cradled babies no one wanted, wiped the tears of the forgotten, and whispered to each one: “You are precious to God. You are loved.” It is an honour this week to write a few words about St. Mother Teresa and how she understood and lived the mercy of Our Lord in her life and work, on the 28th anniversary of her passing.

Love of Christ

Without question, St. Mother Teresa was one of the most respected individuals of the 20th century, both within the Church and throughout the world. She was easily recognized, listened to attentively, persuasive in manner, and would not take no for an answer. St. Mother Teresa once reflected that her vocation was grounded in belonging to Jesus, and in the firm conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

“The work we do,” she asserted, “is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete.” Many people today are inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus to carry out corporal and spiritual works of mercy, relieving poverty, hunger, thirst and homelessness and to bring the joy of the Gospel into our world, inviting others to know Jesus in their lives. As Jesus reminds us in St. Matthew’s Gospel, which was at the heart of St. Mother Teresa’s mission: “As often as you did it to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” We all know people who quietly carry out works of mercy without seeking recognition or reward. In the canonization of St. Mother Teresa, which I was blessed to attend, we are offered a modern-day model of holiness, a true icon of mercy, someone whose life encourages us to be merciful, especially to those most rejected or forgotten.

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Spiritual life

I had the privilege of knowing Mother Teresa for fifteen years, often accompanying her to places like Calcutta, parts of India, Romania and Ireland. During this time, I observed how she received every person with love and faith, seeing the face of God in everyone. When I asked her, “How is it that you never seem to judge or criticize anyone who comes to you?” she replied, “I never judge anyone, because it doesn't allow me the time to love them." What a challenge for us today, in a culture so quick to criticize, divide, judge, cancel and dismiss. Her words confront us, "what if the time we spend judging could instead be spent loving? How many lives could be touched? How many hearts could be healed?"

A lesson in love

Some of my most cherished moments with Mother were in the main Missionary of Charity convent in Calcutta, kneeling beside her in the chapel during Mass, sharing her prayer book and missal, and listening to her speak and sing. Through these experiences, I learned perhaps the greatest lesson from St. Mother Teresa, how intimately and tenderly God loves each one of us. One evening, after a long day working in Kalighat with the sick and dying, Mother Teresa paused in the chapel, genuflected, and looked at the large crucifix with the words “I Thirst” beside it. She said to me, “Look at Jesus on his cross, he is so innocent, holy, and pure. But his head is bent to kiss you, and his arms are outstretched to hold you, and his heart is fully open to enclose your heart with his. Be only all for Jesus always. This is the great love that Jesus has for each one of us." These words have become a mantra for me. Though I sometimes fail to live up to them, I strive daily to keep them alive in my heart.

The hidden cross she carried

What makes her witness even more extraordinary is the suffering she carried in secret. For over forty years, she walked through what spiritual writers call the “dark night of the soul.” After an initial period of joy in her religious vocation, she entered a spiritual desert where she no longer felt God’s presence. “I want to love Him as He has not been loved,” she wrote, “and yet there is that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God.” Imagine that, decades of longing, silence, and apparent absence and still she loved. St. Paul’s words seem written for her: “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith as a choice, love as a cost

St. Mother Teresa teaches us that faith is not a feeling, but a decision. Love is not mere sentiment, but sacrifice. Mercy is not optional, but the very heartbeat of the Gospel. “Love, to be real,” she said, “must hurt. It must cost. It must empty us of self.” This is not the comfortable Gospel we often prefer. It is demanding. It asks us to love even when inconvenient, to forgive even when it hurts, and to give even when we feel we have nothing left. And yet, it is precisely this kind of love that transforms the world.

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A story of mercy

One of the most striking stories she told captures this truth. She once found a woman in a garbage bin, burning with fever, near death. The woman’s only words were: “My son did this to me. My son did this to me.” The pain of rejection by her own child overwhelmed every other suffering. Mother and her sisters cared for her tenderly, and before she died, the woman was able to whisper: “I forgive… my son.” That moment of mercy brought peace to her soul. This story reminds us that the deepest poverty is not material but spiritual, the poverty of being unwanted, unloved, lonely, abandoned, uncared for. And yet it also reveals something else, mercy heals wounds no medicine can reach. Jesus Himself tells us: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).

Christ in disguise

And here is where her witness unsettles us. The poor are not only in Calcutta. They are here in our midst in our own country of Ireland, in our streets, nursing homes, hospitals, mental institutions, homeless shelters, street soup kitchens and prisons. They are the lonely neighbor no one visits, the teenager who feels invisible, the homeless and the refugees who feel unwanted, the addict who feels beyond redemption. Each one of them is Christ in disguise. Jesus tells us plainly in Matthew’s Gospel: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Truly I tell you, as often as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me” (Matthew 25:35, 40). If we take these words seriously, then every encounter with someone in need is an encounter with Jesus Himself.

The cost of forgetting togetherness

In much of the developed world, we have made great strides in promoting individual rights and freedoms. This is a good thing. And yet, somewhere along the way, we risk forgetting that we belong to one another. Progress has sometimes come at the expense of togetherness. The Gospel calls us back to this truth: “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). St. Mother Teresa’s life shows us the power of community. Alone, she admitted, she could do nothing. But together, strengthened by prayer and the Eucharist, she and her sisters became instruments of God’s mercy. And so can we.

Role model of mercy

St. Mother Teresa remains one of my role models, someone whose life mirrors the mercy of Christ. She extended the loving gaze of the Father to the poor and marginalized, echoing the parable of the Prodigal Son. Her mission took her into the slums of Calcutta and the gutters of our world, where she served the poorest of the poor, showing them their inherent dignity and worth.

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God’s compassion

Working with St. Mother Teresa, I experienced the tenderness of God in an extraordinary way. Compassion, I learned, requires immersion in human suffering, crying with those in misery, mourning with the lonely, and being powerless with the powerless. Through such encounters, we reveal the beauty, importance, and self-worth of others, just as St. Mother Teresa did. Despite the harsh conditions, St. Mother Teresa and her sisters radiated joy, something many of us in the more developed world often lack. They reminded me that while we may make great strides in personal rights and freedoms which is so important in our world, we must also not lose sight of our interconnectedness and responsibility to one another.

The source of her strength

Her daily strength came not from herself but from Christ. She began each morning with Mass, receiving Communion, and was sustained by daily prayer, the Rosary, and time before the Blessed Sacrament. “I don’t think I could do this work for even one week if I didn’t have four hours of prayer every day,” she admitted. Even in her dark night of the soul, she never stopped praying. She taught us that prayer enlarges the heart, and only in prayer can we learn to love as Christ loves. Her life demonstrates that prayer is not just a practice, it is the very life of being one with Christ.

A challenge for us all

This week, as we honour her memory, let us not place her on a pedestal out of reach. Let us allow her life to disturb our comfort, to awaken our compassion, and to challenge us to holiness. For holiness is not about doing extraordinary things, but about doing ordinary things with extraordinary love. So let us ask ourselves, 'Who is Christ placing in my path this week? Who is the person I am called to notice, to comfort, to forgive, to love?' The answer to that question may be the very place where God is asking me to become His hands and His heart in the world.

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Thought for the week

As your thought for the week, we must remember that the most fundamental vocation and purpose of our lives is to love. However, love without sacrifice and mercy is empty, and love without pain is vain. St. Mother Teresa once said that humanity has cured so many incurable diseases, but one disease that afflicts humanity today is that there are many people who feel unwanted, lonely and unloved. May each and every one of us become God’s light and hand in the world to touch a wounded soul and heal a broken heart through acts of kindness, love, charity, mercy and forgiveness that flows from a deep place of faith in God.

May we remember the immortal words of St. Therese of Lisieux: “My life is for a moment, I am only the breath of God. O, my God teach me that for loving you and loving my neighbor, I have only today for my life is only for a moment.” Let me leave you with a daily prayer recited by Mother Teresa and attributed to St. John Henry Newman, it was said to be among her favorites. "Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. Amen." For me St. Mother Teresa saw the face of Christ in the poor, the sick, and the dying. Every day she spent helping the sick, the poor, and the dying, mending our broken world by helping her beloved Jesus, who unfortunately at this present time most of us are rejecting. Holiness should be the goal for each of us. As we honor the memory of St. Mother Teresa on the anniversary of her death this week, may she intercede for us and help us to place ourselves in the hands of God, receive the graces we need “to have an open heart to be able to see God in the face of our poor,” so that one day, with her, we will achieve holiness as we rejoice in God’s presence forever in heaven. In conclusion let me leave you with a prayer of mine to St. Mother Teresa, "Lord Jesus, You thirst for us with a love that never ends. Through the witness of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, teach us to see Your face in every person we meet, especially in those who are poor, forgotten, or alone. Give us courage to love until it costs, to forgive without counting, to serve without seeking reward. Empty us of judgment, pride, and indifference, and fill us instead with mercy, tenderness, and joy. As Mother Teresa prayed: “Flood my soul with Your spirit and love, so that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.” May we quench Your thirst, O Lord, by giving drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, comfort to the lonely, and hope to the despairing. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us. Amen."