For a short biography please read the first article in the series
I wish I could force every person on the planet to learn a few things from Teresa of Calcutta.
The fact that God blessed her work is not so strange once you take a deeper look at her motivation and vision. As a protestant I believe the flawed theology of the Catholic church is an abomination. Despite this view I had to admit that God can and does use the most unlikely people to further the kingdom. In addition I have met some devout, saved and sincere Catholics and there may be more than we realize.
This second article will primarily focus on Teresa’s view that the love of Christ is and should be the attraction for unbelievers to the Christian faith. Even amongst Catholics her humanitarian work is elevated above her evangelical work. Her unique way of presenting the gospel was misunderstood and misinterpreted. In essence she was a plain person with limited skills and a simple vision. She was poor and yet extremely rich and powerful. Her power was Christ’s love as it flowed through her. Her power came from the relationship of love she had with her Saviour and the sharing of this love with those who needed it most.
Many mainstream protestant believers such as myself saw her as a weird old Catholic lady whose focus was doing humanitarian work to the detriment of the gospel. This was due to the image of her generated in the press and allowed if not supported by the Catholic church. She was sincere but sincerely wrong. I had to discover that I was wrong. Instead I found that the real focus she had and the order she founded was to reach the lost by sharing the love of Christ. It was refreshing to find this in a Catholic order. It is astounding that the Catholic Church has abused her image by emphasizing all other aspects of her achievements and life but rarely her labour for the gospel.
In stead of filling halls and stadiums with people and confronting them with the reality of the gospel she insisted that people be confronted on a one to one basis. She insisted that they be shown Christ by reflecting his love to the person who needs it and needs salvation. People were drawn to Christ because of his love and compassion for them and we need to do the same.
Just like any believer she had periods of doubt and she struggled like any other believer. The fact that some of her letters of confession were not destroyed as she requested, and reflect these doubts, does not make her a failure. It confirms her humanity and that like any other believer she was saved by grace and just as fallible in her growth as a believer as any of us.
Her feelings of being and unworthy and suffering of self doubt is not strange but typical of all believers. Is it not natural that she at times felt she was not the ideal person to lead the Missionaries of Charity especially as it was growing all the time?. She certainly did not have the financial and management skills such a position required. She was never comfortable with the fame her work brought. The basic training of a month or two as a health worker she received did not qualify her to lead a large organization with such a big focus on meeting medical needs. Mistakes were made and that could be expected. More professional management and medical care could have saved more of the sick but would it have been instrumental in saving more souls?. She was a missionary – not a doctor. She wanted to see souls saved.
In fact if she did have all the managerial and medical skills the focus of the work might have shifted to pure humanitarian work at the expense of the gospel.
The arguments and critics attacking the work of her order therefore misunderstand her focus entirely. In her own mind and true to the gospel she wanted to reach out in love to the souls of the lost first - and the humanitarian work was the expression of that love. She believed that a healthy person was first of all healthy spiritually. The pain of the soul had to be healed first and this would lead to salvation in Christ. In turn this would lead to a changed attitude to life and strength to face disease and affliction. What good is a healthy physical body while the soul is in pain and lost? Especially if you are poor and destitute as the people she reached out to were. Most did not even have a single earthly possession except the clothes on their backs. They were seen by society to have noting and they were seen as nothing. They were ignored as “Non-people” left to die where they lay when sick. This in a country where rats and monkeys were fed in Hindu temples.
She also placed a different perspective on who should be classified as poor and needy. She did not classify the outcasts as the only poor and needy. She said that the poor in needy are found at all levels and places of this world. She focused on the materially poor because she felt that they could do very little for themselves. Her opinion was that those with means or even rich, who are alone, lost and without hope had the time and money to find Christ. She did acknowledge that spiritually they were just as poor and needy as the outcasts but hat they had the choice to seek the truth. They had the money and opportunity to seek out Christ and find peace. She felt that the destitute had no such opportunities as they struggled as beggars every day in Calcutta just to stay alive.
Let the lady speak for herself in the following excerpt from a speech:
Today, once more, when Jesus comes amongst his own, his own don't know him! He comes in the rotten bodies of our poor: he comes even in the rich choked by their own riches. He comes in the loneliness of their hearts, and when there is none to love them. Jesus comes to you and me and often, very, very often, we pass him by.
Today Christ is in people who are unwanted, unemployed, uncared for, hungry, naked and homeless. They seem useless to the state or society and nobody has time for them. It is you and I as Christians, worthy of the love of Christ - if our love is true, who must find them and help them. They are there for the finding.
Everywhere we find lonely people who are at times only known by the number of their room. Where are we? Do we really know that these persons exist at all?
Some time back a very rich man came and told me: `This I give you for somebody to come to my
house. I am nearly half-blind, my wife is nearly mental, our children have all gone abroad and we
are dying of loneliness.'
They are people longing for the loving sound of a human voice.
These are the people that we must know. This is Jesus yesterday and today and tomorrow and you
and I must know who they are. That knowledge will lead us to love them and love to be of service
to them. Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough. They need our
hands to serve them, they need our hearts to love them. The religion of Christ is love, the spreading of love, and to be able to give love we must pray. End quote.
How many glitzy magazines even mentioned this principle she stood for? What are the implications for believers? The following golden rules and lessons. First of all that we dare not think that by meeting the humanitarian needs of the world we are being Christ to others. It is not enough. We cannot by contributions of money and assets sit back and fold our arms in self content. It is not enough. We should do these things anyway just as she did. What Christ expects of us is to unashamedly, unreservedly share our love in Christ with others. As she did we have to reflect and project the love of our own relationship of love with Christ. The world should not only see our good deeds in his name. They should literally feel Christ’s love for them through us. This is heavy stuff but that is what Christianity is – serious business. People should feel the hair on their arms raise as the love of Christ touches them through us. Christ’s sacrifice to us was complete and so should our devotion to him be. We should have the same passion for people that he showed.
A second truth she propagated was that this projection of love starts in our homes:
Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbour... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.
On another occasion she asked:
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbour. Do you know your next door neighbour?
And again:
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
One of her Indian critics showed the many blocks of flats he had built for the slum dwellers of Calcutta and asked why she has so little to show for her efforts. He missed the boat of course. His attack on her only revealed his own spiritual poverty. He is one of the many who do not understand the gospel at all. Jesus wants every possible person to accept his forgiveness and be saved. He builds the mansions in heaven. It is our task to help him populate those mansions. Humanitarian assistance must always be secondary to this goal.
Lacking in graciousness I would have asked him what good a temporary house is when the beggar dies and finds himself in worse circumstances that the slums of Calcutta. How does an apartment save his soul?
We are seeing a continued worldwide movement shifting the focus away from the gospel to humanitarian work, even among devout believers. What value does the new soup kitchen have without Christ’s love. Hand out the mugs of soup by all means but mean business with the emotional and spiritual needs of those receiving the hand out. It is easy to deal with just the humanitarian issues. It is very hard work and a lot of sacrifice to truly become Christ to others. Is it not time that believers shift the focus back to where it belongs? And then still look after the empty stomachs? Is it not time visit an old age home and read the Bible to the blind? What about the lost and forgotten in orphanages, prisons, neighbours, amongst our friends and family.
These perspectives I gained from this unexpected source touched me very deeply. She has left us with a perspective on reaching others for Christ that is slowly being lost and replace by complacency. Where is your Calcutta? Where is your slum? Where do you need to work for Christ and show his love?
Let us not be found wanting as Jesus found one of the churches in Revelation. Let him not accuse us of losing our first love. I am certain that you just I are discovering a different Teresa. More importantly that we are discovering a message from her which mirrors exactly what Jesus taught. I just wish and hope that we will all take up the challenge to be Christ to the world. We meet again with the next article or when Jesus calls.
In South Africa today security plays a vital part in any business or private home. This book and the volumes to follow, will guide you step by step through the essential precautionary measures to be taken in protecting your family and valuables. From employing security guards, evacuation of your site and security measures to burglar bars and alarms in your private home.
a Book compiled by me from experience gained after 10 years in the security industry as Industrial relations officer with Nosa qualifications, 1st Aid, fire protection and also S.O.B. grade A.
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