Missionaries of Charity: the suffering Christ in each sick person
The urgent and pressing need today, in our vocation and mission, is to restore the Image of God in the person, which may be either buried or disfigured. The greatest disease is not TB or leprosy, but the feeling of being uncared for, unwanted or unloved, the lack of love.
When I arrived in India 50 years ago, lepers were ostracized by society; yet Mother would touch the leper, take him by the hand, talk to him with such love and tenderness and clean him, and this frightened people. Fifty years ago, the Missionaries of Charity had a van, which we used to travel to the remote areas, and on the van was a plaque, which had the picture of a hand holding a bell, with the words: ‘Touch the Lepers with Your Compassion’.
Mother Teresa had a very compassionate heart, a maternal heart; Mother always put her heart into what she was doing. She never, ever shied away from touching a leper, however repugnant the person was. It is mandated in our constitution to see the suffering Christ in the other person, especially in the distressing disguise of the poor, sick and elderly.
Mother Teresa’s life-long devotion was to take care of the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged. On ministering to the poor, Mother Teresa wrote, “Without suffering our work would just be social work. . . . All the desolation of poor people must be redeemed and we must share in it.” This seems to be the only explanation for her compassionate world-embracing love—especially for the sick and the poor. It is the healing love of Christ and healing love is the vocation of every Christian.
The story is told of what she said to a novice gingerly cleaning an ugly wound in a woman's neck, as if repelled by what she saw. Mother Teresa told her that was not how to do the task. She took over a scalpel and quickly excised the nasty ulcer. ‘You must understand,’ she said, ‘that this is Jesus. We are cleaning the wounds of the Lord. You did it to me.’
We need to embrace those who are suffering and those who suffer with them. We have to look beyond an understanding of happiness that is material and perishable.
This is Satan's attack on God's Image, every person has the Image of God implanted in him and the design of Satan is to remove the Image of God, so he chooses the weakest and defenceless members to attack and destroy. Hence the regrettable mentality that physically and mentally challenged children are to be aborted in the womb of their own mothers. How absolutely wrong!
Here at Shishu Bhavan, we give dignity to these children and these children respond to our love and this helps others to appreciate that he/she is a beautiful creation of God. Moreover, we need to look beyond the physical, give dignity to these children with special needs. The children are given physiotherapy and other such therapies when they are needed. It is amazing how much these challenged children can achieve and develop. However, it is important to look beyond the physical and material and serve them for their sanctification and to restore the Image of God in them.
We must remember that the advances in science and technology bring the possibility of cures and prevention of diseases and illness, but new diseases emerge, sickness and diseases are inevitable.
Euthanasia is another horrific attack on life. Having worked so closely with Mother Teresa, I have seen some elderly destitute, so broken in body and spirit, some beyond rehabilitation, respond to love. For mother, they are Christ for us—Christ under the guise of human suffering. After coming into our homes for the destitute elderly, they die surrounded with love and with dignity.
‘Did you not see the goodness of God in his eyes?’ once Mother said to me, when she picked up one whose body was ravaged by disease and was very close to death.
When the scourge of AIDS arrived, Mother Teresa was the first to offer help for AIDS patients in Manhattan, New York and subsequently all over the world. We have homes for AIDS patients. We, the Missionaries of Charity, serve them with love to rediscover the Image of God buried or disfigured in them. However, worse than AIDS is the contamination of sin.
Mother Teresa repeatedly said, ‘Love cannot remain by itself—otherwise it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service.’ So, on this World Day of the Sick, we the Missionaries of Charity, in our humble works of love to the poorest of the poor, we all bring tenderness to the way we speak to the poor. Because tenderness reveals beauty and value to the other. This tenderness is a great way of healing. Mother Teresa said, ‘We must give our hearts to love them and our hands to serve them, whoever they may be, wherever they may be.’
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