Argentine writer: The spirit of Mother Teresa helped me in my suffering

The author started writing as a child whilst in "search of God". In 2007 a friend invited him to visit a house of the Missionaries of Charity in Buenos Aires. He later left for India on the trail of the saint of Kolkata.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – "The Spirit of Mother Teresa helped me through my pain,” writes Jesús María Silveyra, an Argentine Catholic writer, who lost his 37-year-old daughter last year to cancer. He told AsiaNews how he discovered the life and works of the saint of Kolkata, about whom he also wrote a book, Tengo Sed. Tras los pasos de Teresa de Calcuta (I am thirsty. In the footsteps of Teresa of Kolkata).

I began to write books in 1991. Most of them religious books. The reason was that since I was a boy I wanted to write and I want to write religious books because I was a looking for God. I was trying to find God. And still I am still looking for God.

Before I wrote about Mother Teresa, I wrote many other books. For the first book about St. Peter, I went to Israel, to Rome. I like to investigate abroad what happened. So, I wrote a book about St. Peter. Then I wrote a book about the 12 apostles.

I wrote about Mother Teresa because one day before Christmas, maybe in 2007, someone told me, "do you want to come before Christmas to a house of the Sisters of Charity in Buenos Aires with your six children to see what they are doing?" So, I went there to a place called Zárate. It is seventy km from Buenos Aires and they are working with poor people who are mentally challenged. (People with special needs). I entered that house and the Chapel I saw the cross and this “I Thirst”. I read the Bible each day with my wife but I never paid much attention to this sentence “I Thirst” and this generated within me a great desire: what is Jesus trying to say to me? 

Then I began to read about Mother Teresa who also began to attract me because she was a very small woman. How could such a small woman move so many things in the world? I started to watch videos on Youtube and internet. I remember when she received the Nobel prize and when she spoke at the American Congress against Abortion. How can such a small woman do this? How can she have such a strong personality? I continued reading her biography and her story ... born in Albania ... So, I decided to travel to India, retrace the same journey, reconstruct the key moments and write a book.

I decided to visit four places because they were very special in the life of Mother Teresa. Kolkata (Calcutta), Darjeeling, Patna and Benaras. In Benaras she wrote a letter to the Sisters of Charity. The letter is about “I Thirst”. In Darjeeling Mother was in the Novitiate. In Patna she started to know how to care for people in the hospital. That is the reason I selected these four places.

I also decided to travel and make the same trip that Mother Teresa made to Darjeeling. So, I went there on 10th of September. I arrived before the anniversary of her death and then I made the trip on 10th of September. As a writer, sometimes you imagine that you can touch or take the same steps that the Saint did. But that is impossible. So, in this book I tell the story about my trip to Kolkata, to Darjeeling, to Patna, to Benaras. And my interview with Mother Prema. I wrote a letter to the Mother Prema, saying that I am an Argentine writer and I want to write about Mother Teresa and she replied to come, that there is a small Hotel near the house and that you could participate everyday in the Mass and in the prayers and you could go to the Shanti Bhavan house near the Kali Temple.

But when I took the train to Darjeeling, during which journey Mother had a “mystical experience", “I Thirst”. From that trip she began to receive locutions from Jesus (she called this phenomenon: "the Voice"). It is very strange because the Sisters of Charity are a congregation with an objective to reach the Thirst of Jesus Christ. It is not the physical thirst but the thirst of souls. It is very strange for the common people to understand.

Thirst of Souls. So, I took the train. It was the monsoon season. The train stopped in a place called New Jalpaiguri. After you have to take a small train, a toy train. But when I arrived at New Jalpaiguri in the monsoon and got off the train, I waited until 7 o’clock in the morning at the house station and at 7 someone told me that the toy train was not working. Oh! So, couldn’t I finish my trip like Mother Teresa to Darjeeling by train? Something happened to me and I discovered that it is impossible to touch the same steps of the Saint. You could try to follow the life of the Saint but you cannot do the same. So, I took a Jeep with five Chinese and I went to Darjeeling by Jeep on a fantastic mountain. It is very green where they grow tea and it is incredible, in the middle of the clouds. I went to the place of the old congregation of Mother Teresa in Darjeeling. Personally, on my own, I climbed the green tea-covered mountains towards Darjeeling, travelling along that winding road. I had no doubt that it was on this journey that Mother Teresa had to receive her "second call". What was also special for me was to work as a volunteer in Nirmal Hriday in Kolkata. I worked 10 days as a volunteer. I asked the sisters what I had to do and they said follow the other volunteers.

There are three important things.

1. “I Thirst”

2. You could never do the same as a Saint. You could follow her.

3. Mother Teresa took from the Bible, “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me”.

I and a Spanish volunteer were to take people from the street and take people to the bathroom to clean them. I did not want to clean anybody. I never did this in my life. Why should I clean a dirty man? And the Spanish guy went out and left me alone with the destitute man. He was dying and so dirty and my reaction was to reject him. But I read on top of the wall something of Mother Teresa, saying: Think that he is Jesus Christ. For that reason, I washed him.

The other moment was in Benaras. I sat on the same chair where Mother Teresa wrote the letter “I Thirst” to the community. It was a fantastic moment, besides the Ganga river on the Shivala Ghat, and the sunshine and I was reading the letter of Mother Teresa and I felt that Mother was with me there.

I think that she is one of the greatest saints of the Church because she suffered a lot. On the Night of the Soul when she decided to move to make the new congregation, she was very happy and thinking that all may be easy and then it was very hard for her. She went to work with the untouchables.

It doesn’t matter if what I do is a small drop of water in the Ocean. Last year I lost Cole Silveyra - my daughter, aged 37 years, to cancer. Cole was just 25 years old, when she was diagnosed with cancer and during the 11 years of her battle with Cancer, who supported me during this time? I had lost my mother, my older and younger brothers, to that illness. The Spirit of Mother Teresa helped me through my pain; God, Jesus, Mother Mary were my strength. Mother was an instrument of God. I saw the same Cross “I Thirst”. In a way, we are witnesses to pain. When I think about it a little more, I think that everyone in the world, some way, is reached by pain and its mystery, although some recognize it more than others.

• india
• argentina
• writer
• mother teresa
• kolkata
• suffering
• spirit
• charity
• mercy
• poor