June 25, 2008

Unstoppable

Here is this 1989 inteview between Mother Teresa and Time Magazine. Mother Teresa's theology of ministry and leadership is captured well. Mother Teresa refused to become a celebrity.

Q. What did you do this morning?
A. Pray.

Q. When did you start?
A. Half past four.

Q. And after prayer?
A. We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in disguise.

Q. People know you as a sort of religious social worker. Do they understand the spiritual basis of your work?
A. I don't know. But I give them a chance to come and touch the poor. Everybody has to experience that. So many young people give up everything to do just that. This is something so completely unbelievable in the world, no? And yet it is wonderful. Our volunteers go back different people.

Q. Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more understandable?

A. I never think like that.

Q. But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?
A. People are responding not because of me but because of what we are doing. I think that before people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That is the great difference. Before, nobody bothered about the people in the street. We have picked up from the streets of Calcutta 54,000 people, and 23,000-something have died in that one room (at Kalighat).

Q. Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God's grace in the world.
A. But it is his work. I think God wants to show his greatness by using nothingness.

Q. You feel you have no special qualities?
A. I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be ) allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no?

Q. What is God's greatest gift to you?
A. The poor people.

Q. How are they a gift to you?
A. I have an opportunity to be 24 hours a day with Jesus.

Q. Here in Calcutta, have you created a real change?
A. I think so. People are aware of the presence, and also many, many, many Hindu people share with us. Now we never see a person lying there in the street dying. It has created a worldwide awareness of the poor.

Q. Beyond showing the poor to the world, have you conveyed any message about how to work with the poor?
A. You must make them feel loved and wanted. They are Jesus for me. I believe in that much more than doing big things for them.

Q. Friends of yours say you are disappointed that your work has not brought more conversions in this great Hindu nation.
A. Missionaries don't think of that. They only want to proclaim the word of God. Numbers have nothing to do with it. But the people are putting prayer into action by coming and serving the people. Everywhere people are helping. There may not be a big conversion like that, but we do not know what is happening in the soul.

Q. People who work with you say you are unstoppable. You always get what you want.
A. That's right. All for Jesus.

Q. What are your plans for the future?
A. I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus.


Q. And the future of the order?
A. It is his concern.


-- Edward D. Desmond, "A Pencil in the Hand of God"(1989 accessed August 27 2007); available from http://www.time.com/time/reports/motherteresa/t891204.html.

2 comments:

  1. Very instructive. Not an ounce of cynicism about Jesus, but a sassy sort of defiance - a refusal to let the implicit incredulity in the questions set the agenda. There was an infectious tenacity to her. An authority.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mother Teresa's honesty and humility always makes her feel tangible to me--like I can, in fact, be like that.

    Good to see you're finally writing on a blog. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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