The following comes from an Oct. 21 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
“The world today is upside down, and is suffering so much, because there is so very little love in the homes and in family life.”
One could easily attribute these words to any number of participants in the extraordinary gathering of the Synod of Bishops in Rome that recently came to a close.
But, in reality, these were the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in an interview with a Christian magazine nearly two decades ago.
“She was talking about the breakdown of the family way before anybody else,” explained David Scott, vice chancellor for communications at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “Over and over again, she would tell people, ‘You deal with the poor in the abstract and you forget about the poor in your own home’.”
“The poor are the kids you’re ignoring to do your job,” Scott said. “They’re the wife you’re ignoring at the end of the day, when you come home from work. Love really does begin in the home.”
Scott is author of a newly published book titled The Love that Made Mother Teresa: How Her Secret Visions and Dark Nights Can Help You Conquer the Slums of your Heart (Sophia Institute Press, 2014). Currently available online, the 113-page book is part biography and part catechesis.
Blessed Mother Teresa became a household name after she was featured in the Malcolm Muggeridge-produced BBC special Something Beautiful for God. In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Despite her international familiarity, very little is known about the life of the Albanian nun. She was born Agnes Gonxha in 1910 in present-day Macedonia. She first recognized her call to religious life during an annual family pilgrimage to a local Marian shrine.
In 1928, she traveled to India to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. Nearly two decades later – while riding a train from Calcutta to Darjeeling – she was inspired to start a new religious order: the Missionaries of Charity….
Scott told CNA that his book is geared toward Catholics who may mistakenly think they know everything there is to know about Blessed Mother Teresa.
“That’s certainly how I was when I starting writing the book,” he reflected. “I thought she was a neat nun who did neat things with the poor. But, the more you know about her, the more you realize she was a mystic living in the slums.”
To read the entire story, click here.
In this age where the Pope and the modernist bishops in league with him are trying to change the Church’s doctrine to please man, one is reminded of a quote from Mother Teresa upon being asked what needed to change in the Church: “You and I.”
People are not taught from their childhood that when courting and throughout married life one must first always put God first, and then always help his/her spouse get to Heaven.
If these are not your primary goals and the primary goals of the person you are marrying – the marriage probably won’t last. So run from a person with other priorities.
Readers might like to know that Mother Teresa founded an apostolate specifically for lay people to minister to their families. The Lay Missionaries of Charity share the congregation’s commitment to service to the poorest of the poor especially to those within their own families, through vows of poverty, chastity (conjugal if married) and obedience. There are groups in California including San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Call any convent of the Missionaries of Charity for more information or email ehanink at aol dot com.
That sounds like a wonderful organization, Elizabeth! Blessed are the poor in spirit… We’re utterly bankrupt in this culture of death. How well Bd Mother Theresa understood that, as did Solzhenitsyn . This is something all Catholics should be part of as we are all called to holiness. Lots of dark alleys and garbage littering most of us! :(