To mark the feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) on Sept. 5, we offer the following excerpt from the booklet I Thirst by Fr. George W. Kosicki, CSB:
In his tribute to Mother Teresa on the occasion of her death, Pope St. John Paul II described the key to Mother Teresa's mission and inspiration:
Her mission began every day, before dawn, in the presence of the Eucharist. In the silence of contemplation, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta heard the echo of Jesus' cry on the Cross: "I thirst." This cry, received in the depths of her heart, spurred her to seek out Jesus in the poor, the abandoned, and the dying on the streets of Calcutta and to all the ends of the earth.
- From Pope John Paul II's Sunday Angelus, Sept. 7, 1997
Mother Teresa experienced a specific moment of life-changing grace:
1946: On the night of September 10, while riding on a train to the mountain town of Darjeeling to recover from suspected tuberculosis, she received her "vocation within a vocation," a calling to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. She would later say: "I abandoned myself totally to God, and He guided me."
- Inside the Vatican, October 1997
At various times, Mother Teresa referred to this moment of grace and spoke of the word of the dying Jesus, "I thirst," as the thirst of Jesus for souls. "I thirst" is written on the wall of every chapel of the Missionaries of Charity around the world.
In Mother Teresa's letter to her community, she wrote:
Why does Jesus say "I thirst"? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words - if you remember anything from Mother's letter, remember this - I thirst is something much deeper than Jesus just saying "I love you." Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you - you can't begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who He wants you to be for Him.
The heart and soul of MC (Missionaries of Charity) is only this - the thirst of Jesus' Heart, hidden in the poor. This is the source of every part of MC life. It gives us our Aim, our 4th vow, the Spirit of our Society. Satiating the living Jesus in our midst is the Society's only purpose for existing. Can we each say the same for ourselves - that it is our only reason for living?
Ask yourself - would it make any difference in my vocation, in my relation to Jesus, in my work, if Jesus' thirst were no longer our Aim - no longer on the chapel wall? Would anything change in my life? Would I feel any loss? Ask yourself honestly, and let this be a test for each to see if His thirst is a reality, something alive - not an idea.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
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