Spiritual Direction

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910 in a Kosovar Albanian family in Macedonia, which was part of the Ottoman empire till 1918. Agnes left home in 1928 at the age of 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, with a view to becoming a missionary. She arrived in India in 1929. She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931 and chose to be named after Therese of Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries, but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling of Teresa.

As headmistress of the Loreto School in Calcutta, she was deeply affected by the Bengal famine of 1943 which brought misery and death to the city, and by the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 which plunged the city into despair and horror. It was on 10 September 1946 that Sr. Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while travelling by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. She described this call as an order from God, "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." One author later observed, "Though no one knew it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become Mother Teresa."

On the day I was baptized October 7, 1950 Mother Teresa received permission from the Vatican to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity [MC]. The mission of the MCs, in her own words, was to care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." Besides consecrating themselves to God with the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience Mother Teresa and the MC sisters took the fourth vow to serve the poorest of the poor.

A disciple of the Suffering Servant and Divine Healer Mother Teresa suffered much to restore dignity and wholeness to the suffering of the poorest of the poor. She was often at the center of controversy from various groups and lobbies that did not like her faith in Christ or her Catholic tenets, especially her views on abortion. She was criticized by many including Christopher Hitchens who wrote that she was more a friend of poverty than of the poor because she believed that suffering was a gift from God.

She received many awards in India and elsewhere. When she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." In the acceptance speech, she also singled out abortion as "the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child – what is left for me to kill you and you kill me – there is nothing between.”

She died in 1997 and was granted a state funeral by the Indian government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India and elsewhere. Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa on 2016-06-03] What a remarkable woman! She changed world history and the lives of the poorest of the poor for the better. She brought healing with the Power of the Risen Lord wherever she went and to whomever she touched - one heart, one life at a time.

Even before I met her in person, I was enamored by her dedication to restore wholeness by bringing health, happiness and holiness to the poorest of the poor. Her heart was totally dedicated to the Risen Lord, who murmured as he lay dying on the cross “I thirst” for souls. Like her I dedicated my life to love Christ in the poor, especially the young the Don Bosco [DB] way. I collaborated with the MC sisters in Pangim, Goa, and accepted to look after a few of their teenagers in the boarding at Sulcorna [1978-87]. One of these boys was called Vincent. I recall vividly how he grew up with me, became an excellent driver and was eventually employed at the DB Agro-Ed Complex. A few years later as an Associate Pastor [1992-93] at St. Paul’s Church in Noe Valley, San Francisco, CA, I was privileged to celebrate the Eucharist with and for Mother Teresa, other MCs and their novices and teach them the Documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Fr. Coelho praying with Mother Teresa in Calcutta on June 12, 1992

I am grateful that I met Mother Teresa a few times. Each of those encounters left indelible memories in my mind and heart. I still remember the piercing stillness that flowed from her lips on February 12, 1985 at DB in Matunga, Bombay, as she very simply shared these five words of Jesus Christ “You did it to me” [Mt 25/40]. These words caught my attention, left me breathless, pierced my soul and made me whole again. On June 12, 1992, I was lucky to meet Mother Teresa, converse, take a picture and pray with her for a few minutes at the Mother House of the MCs in Calcutta. I do not know what she prayed for or thought as she placed her hands on my head. I connected with her silence and prayed that I learn from her how to heal a broken world by touching one heart, one life at a time. I was in harmony with her divine intention – compassion with the Breath of the Risen Christ, the Divine Healer.

I have encountered no better living face of Jesus than that of Mother Teresa. Along with Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk [RBK], the postulator for the cause of her beatification, I pray to the Saint of the Gutters, Come Be My Light (2007). Oftentimes in my confusion I heard Jesus say to me, and I am sure to many a believer, the very same words that he addressed to Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, who became Sister Teresa, "Fear not. It is I who am asking you to do this for me. Fear not - even if the whole world is against you, your companions and Superiors look down on you, fear not - it is I in you, with you, for you" (RBK p98). Mother Teresa experienced constant struggles over her religious beliefs, during which "she felt no presence of God whatsoever, … neither in her heart nor in the Eucharist" (RBK p123). She also expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith. Her life is proof that she simply trusted the Lord. She reflected the radiance of Her Beloved in her smiling face as she gracefully touched the lives of the dying and destitute. Over many years I have prayed her simple but profound prayer of trust, discernment and surrender - “Guide me as You will, Use me when You will.” This prayer contains the essence and the secret of spiritual direction as taught and practiced by Jesus of Nazareth, who in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed, "Not my will, but Yours be done."