Mother Teresa: Carrier of God’s Tender and Merciful Love

“I will tell you which are man’s treasures on earth so that you will appreciate them: hunger, thirst, heat, cold, pain, dishonor, poverty, loneliness, betrayal, slander, prison…”

St. Josemaria Escriva
The Way, no. 194

CARRIER OF GOD’S TENDER AND MERCIFUL LOVE

“The canonization of Mother Teresa invites us to look to her as a Christian hero, an outstanding model of the Christian life. But as Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council tells us, ‘It is not only through their example that we cherish the memory of those in heaven; rather we seek, by devotion to them, to exercise that bond of fraternal charity which unites and strengthens the whole Church in the Spirit (cf. Eph 4:1-6). Just as Christian charity brings us closer to Christ on our earthly journey, so does the communion of saints join the People of God to Christ, the fountainhead of all grace and life, on their eternal journey’ (LG 50). (…)

“As we approach the canonization of Mother Teresa, we may be encouraged by her example and message of God’s tender and merciful love to put ‘love into living action’ as she did, to do ‘ordinary things with extraordinary love.’ We may not be called to do exactly what Mother Teresa did, but we can do what God entrusts uniquely to each one of us. Mother Teresa understood this so well: ‘As I often say to people who tell me they would like to serve the poor as I do, “What I can do, you cannot; what you can do, I cannot. But together we can do something beautiful for God”’.”

Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.
Postulator
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PRAYER FOR THE CANONIZATION OF MOTHER TERESA

Lord Jesus, merciful Face of the Father, you came to give us the Good News of the Father’s mercy and tenderness.

We thank you for the gift of our dearest Mother, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized in this Jubilee Year of Mercy. You chose her to be your presence, your love and compassion to the brokenhearted, the unwanted, the abandoned and the dying. She responded wholeheartedly to your cry, ‘I Thirst,’ by the holiness of her life and humble works of love to the poorest of the poor.

We pray, through her intercession, for the grace to experience your merciful love and share it in our own families, communities and with all our suffering brothers and sisters. Help us to give our “hearts to love and hands to serve” after the example of Mother Teresa. Lord Jesus, bless every member of our family, our parish, our diocese, our country, especially those most in need, that we all may be transformed by your merciful love. Amen.

Text © Mother Teresa Center of the Missionaries of Charity