On September 5, the International Day of Charity, the world commemorated the death anniversary of a renowned missionary and humanitarian, after whom the United Nations declared the day thus in 2012. The memorial is, however, not an archetypal one associated with glittering gatherings. There are no stirring speeches highlighting her contribution to society.
On the other hand, she is remembered in private and through simple prayers within her congregation of nuns. She is fondly thought of, not in any dazzling imagery, but as that diminutive lady who came from a foreign land with love in her heart, to serve the poorest of the poor in a mission country. Her model as the Good Samaritan will continue to be relevant, and perhaps inspire several others, as it has during the pandemic.
St Teresa of Kolkata, a mother to the millions of poor in our country and across the world where she later set up her convents, was an icon of the Good Samaritan. Her deep affinity to serve the poor and the love with which she achieved it could only be compared to that of the Lord Himself, to whom she had dedicated her life.
"They never got dignity in their life, they should get dignity in their death, they should get the warmth of human touch,” was the supreme thought that St Teresa instilled in all who worked in her destitute homes.
Hundreds of social workers who volunteered to work with her often referred to the experience of holding and caressing the sick and the dying as more of a spiritual experience than a social one.
Perhaps, this spiritual experience could be compared to the experience that hundreds of our medical professionals went through during the past few months of the pandemic in our country. They put themselves on the line and worked selflessly and courageously, not as doctors, as nurses but more like saviours and angels in saving millions of lives. They have in fact put into practice what St Teresa would often say, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
St Teresa believed that nothing mattered as long as there was love deep within us. For, it was her belief that “intense love does not measure, it just gives.” It is heartening that in the middle of the century’s worst pandemic, there was this intense love that traversed the world together with the virus. Many better-placed people opened soup kitchens for the hungry and the poor. The financially better-off contributed money to specially created funds and other affected individuals. Bereaved families received heartfelt counselling and consolation. The old and the bed-ridden were cared for braving the inconveniences of lockdowns and curfew.
Touching lives
In the midst of a horrifying pandemic, good-natured people were found in plenty spreading love in keeping with St Teresa's words, “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” Indeed if there was happiness in these sad times of the pandemic, it came from the love of those who chose to spread happiness among the suffering and the needy.
In October 2003, when the beatification—a process in the Catholic Church to confer sainthood on an individual—of St Teresa began, the then Pope John Paul II proclaimed, “I am personally grateful to this courageous woman whom I have always felt beside me. Mother Teresa, an icon of the Good Samaritan, went everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. Not even conflict and war could stand in her way.” Indeed this very serving spirit was found in the past several months in the form of Good Samaritans who tackled a pandemic and its effects with profound acts of love.