What Do Mother Teresa and Patrick Swayze Have In Common? | Mary Beth Bonacci | Ignatius Insight
What Do Mother Teresa and Patrick Swayze Have In Common? | Mary Beth Bonacci | Ignatius Insight
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2008/mbbonacci_motherteresa_apr08.asp
Very little, I suppose. They both had their pictures in the paper a lot. They were both featured in
theater-released movies in the 1980's. And right now, they both have me
thinking. About life, about death, and about doing God's will.
It started a couple of weeks
ago, when I started reading Come Be My Light: The
Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta. Most of the talk
surrounding this book has been about the spiritual darkness that enveloped
Mother Teresa for nearly fifty years. I, of course, found that darkness
fascinating (and a little bit disturbing). But I was most struck by the events
earlier in her life–the call to found the Missionaries of Charity, and
her subsequent determination to fulfill that call, despite great personal
sacrifice.
In 1946, Mother Teresa was a
36-year-old nun of the order of the Sisters of Loreto in India. She lived in
relative comfort, taught at a school for Indian girls, and ventured into the
slums once a week to do what she could to alleviate the suffering of the poor. On
September 10th of that year, while traveling by train to Darjeeling for her
annual retreat, she received what she believed to be a direct call from Christ
to form a religious order of sisters who would live "absolute poverty" and
minister to the poorest of the poor.
During the course of that retreat, the
call grew stronger as Christ Himself communicated very intimately and very
directly with young Mother Teresa. Upon her return, she brought this request to
her spiritual director, and with his permission to her Archbishop. Over the
next two years, she wrote letter after letter to the Archbishop and to the
Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome, seeking permission to leave the
Sisters of Loretto and to form the new order.
Reading those letters, it's clear
that this was one very persistent woman.
Mother Teresa walked away
from her life of comfort and embraced extreme poverty. I've always assumed she
did that because she wanted to. Maybe she didn't care that much about comfort. Maybe
she didn't like nice things.
But that's not the way it
was.
She was persistent–heroically
persistent–because she believed that this calling was God's will. She saw
that Christ "thirsted" for the souls of the poor. And so she did, too.
But for
her part, the personal sacrifice was great. She wrote to Archbishop Perier, "I
have been and am very happy as a Loreto Nun. To leave that what I love and expose myself to new labours
and sufferings which will be great, to be the laughingstock of so many–especially
religious–to cling to and choose deliberately the hard things of an
Indian life–to loneliness and ignominy–uncertainty–and all
because Jesus wants it . . . These thoughts were a cause of much suffering . .
." Later, in prayer, she wrote "I am so afraid Jesus–I am so terribly
afraid–let me not be deceived–I am so terribly afraid. This fear
shows how much I love myself. I am afraid of the suffering that will come
through leading the Indian life–clothing like them, eating like them,
sleeping like them–living like them and never having anything my own way.
How much comfort has taken possession of my heart."
And, in February of 1948,
she wrote to the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Religious, "All
these years of my religious life, I have been quite happy as a member of the
Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the thought of leaving it breaks my
heart. Why Almighty God calls me now to this new life I do not know, but I want
to do only His Holy Will without any reserve, whatever the cost be."
Okay, sometimes I've been
known to flatter myself into believing that I'm relatively holy, or that I'm
open to God's will in my life. But not after reading this. I am weak, weak,
weak. Sure I want to do God's will. But once it becomes inconvenient, I lose
enthusiasm. What will He take from me? What will He ask me to give up? Would He
make me leave my home? My loved ones? What about all of the cool furniture I
just bought?
We look at Blessed Mother
Teresa, and we say "Well, sure she gave up a lot. But look at why she did it. Today,
thousands of sisters care for hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor
all over the world."
Yes, but she didn't know
that. For all she knew, the Missionaries of Charity would never be more than
herself and a few other women, reaching out to the poor in her own back yard in
Calcutta. And yet she said "yes" and gave everything to God.
So what on earth does all of
this have to do with Patrick Swayze? Nothing, except that I was contemplating
Mother Teresa's sacrifice, and my own relative weakness, when I heard the
devastating news of his cancer diagnosis. And I thought about how quickly life
can change. A healthy, athletic man in his 50's suddenly discovers that the
deadliest form of cancer known to man is growing in his pancreas, and he will
most likely not live to see another year.
How would I feel if I
discovered my life was near its end?
One thing I know for sure–I would
wish that I had followed God's will more closely, wherever it led. All of the
things I've been clinging to wouldn't matter nearly as much as the reality that
God sees the big picture, and that following His will leaves the world–and
my soul–in much better condition than it would otherwise be.
The thing is, we're all
going to have to leave our homes and our loved ones and our cool furniture some
day. Clinging to it, or any of the "goods" of life, is utterly futile. His love and His will, however, last for
all eternity.
Yeah, I get that,
intellectually. But surrendering my will to His will isn't so easy. It takes a
heart radically converted to Him. It takes a lot of sacrifice, and a lot of
prayer.
So I've been asking Blessed
Teresa of Calcutta to help me out. She's praying for me.
I bet she'd pray for you, too.
This column originally appeared, in a slightly different form, on RealLove.net
on March 10, 2008.
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• The Question of Hope | Peter Kreeft
• Are God's Ways Fair? | Ralph Martin
• The Question of Suffering, the
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• The Cross and The Holocaust | Regis Martin
• Why Do We Exist? | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
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Mary Beth Bonacci is internationally known for her talks
and writings about love, chastity, and sexuality. Since 1986 she has spoken
to tens of thousands of young people, including 75,000 people in 1993 at
World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado. She appears frequently on radio and
television programs, including several appearances on MTV.
Mary Beth has written two books, We're
on a Mission from God and Real
Love, and also writes a regular, syndicated column for various publications.
She has developed numerous videos, including her brand-newest video series,
also entitled Real Love. Her video Sex
and Love: What's a Teenager to Do? was awarded the 1996 Crown Award
for Best Youth Curriculum.
Mary Beth holds a bachelor's degree in Organizational Communication from
the University of San Francisco, and a master's degree in Theology of Marriage
and Family from the John Paul II Institute at Lateran University. She was
also awarded an honorary doctorate in Communications from the Franciscan
University of Steubenville, and is listed in Outstanding Young Women
of America for 1997. Her apostolate, Real
Love Incorporated is dedicated to presenting the truth about the Church's
teaching about sexuality, chastity, and marriage.
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