Today the Catholic Church celebrates the memory of St. Teresa of Calcutta, a nun of Albanian origin who, with her yes to the Lord's plans, was able to bring the Love of God to the poorest of the poor in more than 130 countries. That is to say, to every corner of the planet. What is impossible for man is possible for God.
I remember these days that the same year that the Catholic Church, with Pope Francis at its head, canonized St. Teresa of Calcutta, a missionary of charity told me a phrase that stuck in my heart: "Our faith, compared to the faith of Mother, is very small". She was referring to Mother Teresa, whom this sister knew well during her formative years in Calcutta and whom she had seen embark on unexplored paths supported solely and exclusively by her trust in God. In her faith.
And if this nun's faith was, according to herself, small compared to Mother's, what would mine be like? I want that faith, I thought to myself immediately. At least that of the sister who might as well be the size of a mustard seed. I soon understood that having faith was not just a matter of wanting it.
My experience in Calcutta
During the fifteen months I lived in Calcutta there was one thing that caught my attention. The place where this great work of charity began, which God did through Mother Teresa in the humble neighborhood of Motijheel is still today a largely Muslim area in which there is still much poverty, both material and spiritual. And I often thought as I strolled through its streets: If I had grown up in Calcutta with a saint so close to me, I would have converted long ago and my faith would already be about the size of that mustard seed. And I would be lying if I did not say that many people in Calcutta and in other parts of the world came face to face with Jesus as a result of an encounter, fortuitous or not, with Mother or with one of her sisters. There are examples of this, I dare say, in all the places through which this hurricane of charity at the service of the King of humanity has passed.
These last few weeks in the Holy Land a similar thought has come to my prayer again. I do not intend, of course, to put Mother on the same level as Jesus, God forbid, but I can say that both Our Lord and this saint, and surely many other saints, share that mystery that perhaps one day we will be able to understand. The land where Jesus was born, the places where the very Son of God made man passed through, the mountain where he died crucified or the Holy Sepulcher from where he resurrected on the third day, are today places where his followers, the followers of Jesus Christ and his teachings, the Christians, are a minority. How is this possible?
I grew up in a Catholic family that educated me in the faith from an early age. I was baptized thirteen days after I was born, I always studied in Catholic schools and, moreover, in my home I had and still have, thanks be to God, the example of parents who, without being far from perfect, have always lived their faith with deep coherence. All this did not prevent, however, my encounter with the living God, in the Eucharist and in my brothers and sisters, especially in the most needy, from taking more than thirty years to arrive. How many baptized people live as if they were not baptized! How many Christians do not know Christ! How many! Too many.
Last Sunday, August 24, during the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father Leo XIV addressed to us the following words that I believe we should meditate on:
"Our faith is authentic when it embraces our whole life, when it is a criterion in the decisions we make, when it makes us women and men who are committed to the good and capable of taking risks for love as Jesus did. He did not choose the easy path of success or power, but in order to save us, he loved us to the point of crossing the narrow gate of the Cross. He is the measure of our faith, He is the door we must cross to be saved, living His same love and being builders of justice and peace with our lives".
Today, as we remember throughout the world this great little saint of the end of the last century, an example of faith for the less young and also for the youngest who today continue to see how their lives are transformed by coming into contact with her Missionaries of Charity, as we raise our prayers for the poorest and for peace to St. Teresa of Calcutta, I propose to you, dear reader, two things: firstly, let us thank God for the immense gift of faith and secondly, let us pray for all our brothers and sisters, for those who want to and cannot, for those who do not see even though they can't, in Calcutta, in Palestine or in Israel, so that every day more and more people may enjoy full happiness as a result of having received, freely and undeservedly, the gift of faith, the greatest gift.
Lay missionary and founder of Mary's Children Mission.
