Loving the Poor is Belonging to Christ

“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.” Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

J.M.J

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta often said that in all of her work with the poorest of the poor, spiritual poverty was by far the most devastating form of desolation she had ever encountered. Her motivation for starting the order of the Missionaries of Charity was an encounter with an abandoned dying woman she found on the streets of Calcutta in front of the local hospital. Blessed Teresa stayed with that woman until she died and then went onto dedicate her life to serving and loving Jesus in the poorest of the poor. She understood what it is Jesus is calling us to be as His followers. She heard His call and responded by loving each individual she encountered as a human being deserving dignity and as her family of brothers and sisters, the children of God.
When we really stop to think about it, we as people often take the message of Jesus, to love one another, and distort it to fit into our own lives. It seems we want so much to feel good about ourselves, to do what we feel is right for us, and to try to alleviate the fear that we are less than others, that we often neglect the poor around us each day. What is really ironic is that in our selfishness and self focus we truly become the most poor.
How often have we hurt God in others by excluding them from our lives because we rationalize it is what is best for us and our families? Blessed Mother Teresa once told a story about a woman who had nine children who were starving. Mother and her sisters travelled to bring milk to the family and as soon as it was given, the woman scurried off unannounced and in haste. Blessed Mother Teresa asked the woman upon her return where she had gone. She replied that the woman next door had eight children and she gave her half the milk so that the children would not go to bed with an empty stomach. It did not surprise Mother that she gave, as often there is great generosity and love amongst the poor, rather what impacted her was that this woman knew who her neighbor was.
Do we know who our neighbors are? Do we have the generosity and love of the poor? Blessed Mother Teresa, in dedicating her whole being for the love of Christ, understood His simple and yet profound message. She understood that giving of self and losing its false nature brings us closer to God. She saw Jesus in the sick, dying, unloved, and abandoned. She often said Jesus was her all, He was her love, and she needed to be able to talk about that Love. She always said that everything that she did, she did for love of Him.
Blessed Teresa no longer saw the outcasts of society before her; it was her beloved Jesus, who was truly in her midst and dying in her arms. She was not afraid to touch the lepers or how catching their disease might affect her life. She was more concerned about others catching a diseased heart, unable to give and receive love. The only fear one could say she may have had was that others might not come to know that through their suffering, Christ lives within them. She wanted the poor to know she loved them and more importantly that God loves them. She understood that a self focused world would sadly miss one of the greatest privileges of all, that of loving the suffering Jesus amongst the poor, even in our own families. Blessed Mother Teresa knew that God was truly in her midst in every lost soul and every abandoned and dying child. In her humble and simple ministry she found a peace that only comes from giving your life away for Christ and others.
How often do we make other lepers in our own lives out of fear of losing ourselves? It is only when we realize as Blessed Teresa did, that everything we have and all that we are is God’s gift to us, will we begin to understand true happiness and peace. It is in understanding that we posses nothing, that we can begin to understand how Mother so freely gave everything that she had. It is then we can come to understand that authentic love is self sacrifice, mirrored after the Ultimate Sacrifice, Love Himself.
Blessed Teresa took God’s gift of her life, and made it a living prayer in thanksgiving to Him. Even through her decades of the dark night she remained faithful to what she knew God called her by vocation. Despite her own struggles and emotions, she remained obedient to God, the blind faith which He is calling of each of us. Blessed Mother Teresa said “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” I often ask myself if I am doing my job as a Christian when so many of my brothers and sisters are leaving the Church. Was I so preoccupied with myself and my life that I missed someone felt unwelcome in our Father’s House?
Are we truly doing our best to make others feel they belong to us? In a very dark world full of false promises, it seems God’s people need each another more than ever. Let us pray to Blessed Mother Teresa to intercede for us for the grace to understand what Jesus is calling us to be as Catholics, what He is calling us to be as families, and what He is calling us to be as brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although He was rich, that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Thank you Blessed Teresa for teaching us that true richness comes from serving the hidden Christ, who is always amongst the poor.