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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
November 2, 2003"Mother Teresa on the Way to Heaven"
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Two weeks ago, Pope John Paul II presided at a ceremony that "beatified" Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
"Beatification" is the next-to-the-last step on the road to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. Normally, the Catholic Church takes many years -- even centuries -- to determine if a person should be v an example of holiness for the church.
The candidate's life is carefully examined, miracles claimed from prayers for her are judged, and her continuing influence on Christians is evaluated.
Mother Teresa, however, only died six years ago. And on this All Saints' Sunday, I want to look at the reasons why her case has advanced at such a rapid pace. I want to look at some aspects of her character and her life that have inspired this extraordinary devotion.
For, even while Mother Teresa was alive, she was regarded as a saint. I remember in 1976 a priest friend of mine eagerly took advantage of a chance to meet her at a convent in the Bronx. Even then, her holiness was legendary.
At that time, in discussing Mother Teresa's sanctity, many supporters pointed to the wonderful religious order that she founded, an order with a special mission to the poorest of the poor.
Mother Teresa had previously been a member of another community of sisters. She felt called by God to begin a new work after she came across a dying woman who had been refused admission to a hospital in Calcutta.
Mother Teresa remained on the street with the woman until she died. And the members of order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity take a special interest in comforting those who would otherwise die alone in Calcutta and many other cities throughout the world.
This is a wonderful story; there is no question that Mother Teresa deserves the devotion she received during her lifetime and continues to receive today.
But I would also like to note one important spiritual component of this ministry.
Mother Teresa often said that she could see Jesus in the people she helped. Even if they weren't Christian, Mother Teresa would agree with Christ's teaching that all the poor are "blessed," and "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Yet, Mother Teresa had no illusions that the poor were any nicer than other people! She once wrote out some lines that were found on her wall by her bed after she died. They included these maxims, which show that she knew all about human frailties.
She wrote:
"People are often unreasonable, illogical or self-centered. Forgive them anyway ..
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway ...
The good you do today people will often forget tomorrow. Be good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be good enough. Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."
No, Mother Teresa wasn't inclined to idealize the poor. But she was nevertheless able to give her life to them because she had the saintly gift of perceiving Christ in those she helped.
Her sainthood thus had a strong practical side. Mother Teresa knew as well as anyone the problems of the spiritual life. This awareness is painfully illustrated in some other writings that have recently been made public in America by Carol Zaleski, a Smith Professor who lectured at Incarnation a couple of years ago.
In these unpublished letters and papers, Mother Teresa discusses extraordinary visions of Christ that she was given at the beginning of her work. These visions, however, soon stopped as suddenly as they began. So for the rest of her life, she seems to have had very little of what we would call "spiritual experience."
Yet even without these consolations, she carried on. She kept recruiting sisters and founding convents, and she continued to help the poorest of the poor.
Even when prayer was disappointing to her, she kept praying for she knew that she was lost if she didn't. She knew that prayer was the center of the Christian life. One amusing anecdote shows how her own no-nonsense approach to people could also be applied to spirituality.
Mother Teresa was once talking with a bishop about prayer. The bishop remarked that he only had limited time for prayer because his day was filled with activity from six in the morning.
Mother Teresa replied sharply, "Get up at five!"
Mother Teresa didn't suffer fools gladly! I have particularly stressed her humanity because humanity is an often overlooked aspect of sainthood.
Yet she had an unbelievable patience with the poor. Her discipline of trying to recognize the presence of Christ in every person seems to have done the trick. The people she served were still annoying -- but being nice to them was easier because of her spiritual attitude. That's clearly a lesson for us in our own attempts to love others.
Finally, as we think on All Saints' Sunday about the saintliness of Teresa of Calcutta, it's important for us to remember that she worked with a one particular segment of the poor: those who were dying.
If you have ever spent time with someone at the end of his or her life, you may have had a sense that the person was "in transition." Although, of course, you couldn't see the person's soul getting ready to leave the body, you might have had a sense that the inner person was, somehow, going to another place.
If you haven't had this experience, you may wonder what I'm talking about. And I suppose some of these experiences might be fantasies.
But the idea is the same as that expressed in our belief in the Communion of Saints: the doctrine that there is an ideal self in all of us, a spiritual essence linked with other selves in a transcendent fellowship that spans the gulf between Heaven and Earth.
We catch a glimpse of the Communion of Saints when we see Christ in the poor and in the dying, and in the faces of the people we love.
On this Sunday especially, when we pray for the departed, we sense the continued fellowship of those whom we love but see no longer -- the fellowship of all the saints, beatified or non-beatified, celebrated or forgotten -- saints who have come out of the tribulations of life and who now share the Heavenly Banquet at the throne of grace.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.