Paper: Mother Teresa: A Visionary of Compassion
Abstract
Only a woman
can become a mother. Her genes for conceiving, bearing, giving birth, giving
attentive care, feeding and nurturing, leading to adulthood is indeed “womb
love” (raham) which is called
compassion in the Bible. The vision of mother Teresa of Calcutta is based on
the very nature of “womb love” and she used it effectively to embrace the
broken Jesus on the cross. That is the reason, every chapel of her convents is
furnished with a crucifix and engraved beside the crucifix the loud cry of
Jesus from the cross ‘I thirst.’ She heard this cry as the cry of humanity from
the womb to the tomb and her “womb love” longed to satiate this thirst. Through
finding Jesus in the hungry, thirsty and naked (Matthew 25:35), and
through strengthening the weakest,
healing the sick, binding up the injured, bringing back the strayed and
searching for the lost (Ezekiel. 34:4), Mother became a good shepherd after the
model of Jesus. Mother saw an intimate link between the two forms of presence
of Christ in the world. She taught her sisters to see the broken body of Jesus
in the appearance of Eucharist bread (contemplation) and to touch him in the
broken bodies of the poor (action). In her words, “Every time we receive Holy
Communion we become one with Jesus. This union can be compared to that of the
husband and wife in a marriage. So the fruit of this union is our work for the
poor and for the souls.” She contemplated the paschal mystery of Jesus and
encountered Him in her activities. She focussed her attention on these two
realities concretely and simultaneously and gave her sisters the same mission. Thus, Mother Teresa perceives a unified
vision and action of seeing and serving the broken body of Jesus in the poorest
of the poor and that gives a transforming effect in the society.
Smitha Gabriel, belonging to Ancillae Secular Institute, had her Masters in Theology from St. Peters Pontifical Institute, Bangalore, and Doctorate in Spirituality from Indian Institute of Spirituality, Bangalore. She has published research articles in Indian Journal of Spirituality. Presently she is in charge of formation in Ancillae Secular Institute.
