On 26 August 1910 in Skopje (modern Albania), a city situated at the crossroads of Balkan history, a luminous messenger of God’s love in and for the world was born. Diminutive in stature but giant in spirit, Mother Teresa was absolutely an extraordinary witness of that amazing “light (that) shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1,5).

The sixteenth US President who brought about the slaves’ emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, said: “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years”. The 87 years of Mother Teresa’s life were a constant search and the living out of Christ’s missionary goal: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10, 10). The kind of life he was after was one of continuous service, primarily to those who stand on the remotest fringes of contemporary society. Jesus’ words became her life motto: “For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10, 45).

Thanks to her penetrative and contemplative look at the Crucified Lord, as preeminently found in the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa was able to recognise Jesus’ thirsting love for humanity. For her, “God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.” By means of our simple loving gestures, Christ can still “quench His thirst for love and for souls”. Mother Teresa knew very well that the deep-seated malaise of current western industrialised culture is the terrible loneliness many of us are living in. “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat”. Moreover, people who are well-off are not spared from this calamitous existential situation. “Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own”.

In order to fruitfully respond to such a leading human misery, Mother Teresa suggested simple loving gestures which have, in the end, the impending power of causing a transforming difference. “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing”. And this loving action has to kick off from the place where we reside. “Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home”. “Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action”.

It has been Mother Teresa’s incessant preoccupation to see our world becoming a home, a place where everybody is warmly welcomed and appreciated for what s/he is in front of God. The Bible teaches that God is infinitely pleased by people who endorse peace (see Luke 2, 14). Harping on this basic biblical anthropological tenet, Mother Teresa gradually became aware that every person under the sun can become an angel of peace. Thus, her encouragement sounds so actual and realistic. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier”. Since “peace begins with a smile” and is part and parcel of those “good works (that) are links that form a chain of love” it is essential that we “do not wait for leaders; (but) do it alone, person to person”.

One of the clearest signs of this spiritual and political long-lasting and life-changing peace is her staunch and passionate defence of human life, particularly the sacred rights of the unborn children. “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.” Abortion is the number one enemy of peace since it horribly promotes the ongoing tragic ethos of annihilating fellow innocent human beings. “And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” “By abortion the Mother does not learn to love, but kills her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women to the same trouble. So abortion leads to more abortion”.

We too are called to be living icons of the Good Samaritan, as Mother Teresa was, but with a crucial difference. Mother Teresa is in heaven whilst we are still living in this world. Motivated by her example let us remember that in each person we meet, there “is Jesus in disguise”.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap