Month: March 2022

3. FROM CALVARY TO KOLKATA

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Mary and Joseph. God so loved the Virgin Mary that he gave his only begotten Son to her. The spotless Virgin Mary received him first in her heart and then in the womb (cf. LG, 53). Ever since Mary welcomed the word of the eternal Father in her virginal womb she loved him above everyone, above everything and above herself. But that love for Jesus she felt was incomplete. With Jesus in her immediately she went in haste  to give him to her cousin Elizabeth and to others. Since then her life became inseparable from Jesus’ life and vice versa. It can be said  that the virgin of Nazareth whom the eternal Father chose to be the Mother of God and the Mother of the Redeemer lived and worked for Jesus, her beloved Son. 

Since the Annunciation which was her first Holy Communion Day (St. Teresa of Calcutta) Mary became the first tabernacle of the Lord. For nine months the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, dwelt in her, grew in her and the “Redeemer of man” breathed through her. Their heart beats were unison. He went where Mary went. He slept where she slept. Mary fed him with her life blood. No other creature could have greater physical closeness nor spiritual intimacy with Jesus than Mary had. It not only lasted for thirty three years but their relationship, especially the spiritual closeness, grew stronger and deeper with years of living and working together for the salvation of the world even after their earthly career was over.

The person chosen by God to share the physical closeness and spiritual intimacy was St. Joseph. It was to St. Joseph the eternal father entrusted the care and protection of both Jesus and Mary; and these were three extraordinary persons who ever lived on earth. In all three there was nothing but the desire to do the will of God, the Father. There was nothing but love and service, there was no ambition except to give and share; no other hunger and thirst except to know God, to love him madly and serve him whole-heartedly, to teach people to obey his commandments, and bring God to them and them to God. 

They were people of deep inner convictions. In the presence of each other their convictions grew stronger and deeper. Their personal intimacy with Jesus made Mary and Joseph even more convinced of the importance of their vocation and mission. Their vocation and mission were not limited to their short span of life in this world of suffering, trials and sorrow, but became more powerful, effective and extraordinary after their going home to God. Their mission of love became an extension of the Father’s plan for and mission to mankind. Through them the eternal Father, who loves the world more than a mother who loves her suckling child (cf. Is 49: 15), not only reveals his saving plan for man but enables it to be realized through them until the end of the world. In this our Lady is the highly privileged and favoured daughter on whom the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bestowed every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Even before the foundation of the world, she was chosen by the Father to be his beloved and favourite daughter to become the mother of his only begotten Son (cf. Eph 1: 3 ff.).

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2. The Missionaries of Charity train

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In the dark hours of the night of Tuesday, 10 September, 1946 Mother Teresa IBVM was in a running train, heading toward the hill country of Darjeeling, in the high ranges of the mighty Himalayas.

She was going away from the crowded and noisy city of Kolkata, careless and chaotic, to go into the silence of contemplation, as she knew very well that the call to holiness is accepted and can be cultivated only in the silence of contemplation. She did not know or realize that the crowd she was trying to get away from was following her all the way.

Her eyes being closed, her mind being still, the noisy train running in the dark hours of the night, without warning there appears a big crowd of people: emaciated bodies, eaten up by worms; abandoned babies, orphaned, unloved, uncared for; disfigured faces of lepers, lost limbs and lost feet. Their feeble hands raised towards her, spoke very softly but very firmly without complaints: “Mother Teresa, come, come, save us, bring us to Jesus”. We are being abandoned, sheep without a shepherd and guide; we are in need of a guide, a helper, a Saviour!

The crowd knew before she knew the plan God had for her. There would be a radical change in her lifestyle, her vocation and her mission. Her eyes had not yet seen, her mind had not yet grasped what God was preparing her for!

Although she was getting away from the crowd, it was following her They were with her, and she found herself in the midst of the crowd she was going away from! The hungry and the thirsty crowd saw in her the one to bring them to the Saviour. Jesus was still hiding himself. He wanted her to see him in faith.

“Thomas, you believed because you saw me, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20: 29). Within minutes he was going to make her meet someone very special to him: his very dear Mother in the crowd: “Mother Teresa, do you see the crowd? Take care of them. They are mine. Bring them to Jesus”, who is their true Saviour. 

Neither the crowd by themselves, nor St. Teresa M.C. by herself, nor even Our Lady can save people. Jesus alone is their Saviour. He alone is our Saviour. He alone saves all. He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the world (cf. Jn 1: 29).

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