A plug from Peggy

Columnist Peggy Noonan plugged "Mother Teresa's Secret Fire" over the weekend in The Wall Street Journal. At the end of a review of books she especially enjoyed in 2008, she writes:

None of these books were more important in the end than a modest and unheralded book called "Mother Teresa's Secret Fire" by Joseph Langford, a priest of her Missionaries of Charity and her close friend of many years. You wouldn't think there's much new to say here, but there is. Everyone knows that as a young nun in Calcutta, Mother Teresa, then Sister Teresa, left her convent, with only five rupees in her pocket, in order to work with the poorest of the poor in the slums of the city. But what made her do this?

On Sept. 10, 1946, on a train to Darjeeling, on her way to a spiritual retreat, she had, as Father Langford puts it, "an overwhelming experience of God." This is known. But its nature? It was not "some dry command to 'work for the poor,'" he says, but something else, something more monumental. What? For many years, she didn't like to speak of what happened, or interpret it. So the deepest meaning of her message remained largely unknown. Says Father Langford, "What was deepest in her . . . is still a mystery even to her most ardent admirers. But it was not her wish that this secret remain forever unknown."

In this book, based on her letters, writings and conversations, he tells of how she came to serve "the least, the last, and the lost," not as a female Albert Schweitzer but as "a mystic with sleeves rolled up." Father Langford tells the story of her encounter
on the train, of what was said, of what she heard, and of the things he learned from her including, most centrally, this: You must find your own Calcutta. You don't have to go to India. Calcutta is all around you.

It's better than I'm saying. But this is a good time to have Mother Teresa's life in mind, and to remember, perhaps, that all can change, that a life—and a world—can be made better all of a sudden, out of the blue, unexpectedly. But you have to be
listening. You have to be able to hear. Happy 2009.

"I love Him in the poor"

The following is an excerpt from OSV's pamphlet, Blessed Mother Teresa:

" I believe that we are not really social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of people. But we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the body of Christ twenty-four hours. We have twenty-four hours in His presence" -- from Mother Teresa's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1979
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us that when we meet those in need, we meet Him, and that when we serve those in need, we serve Him. Blessed Teresa is a living witness to the truth of Jesus' words, and to their power. The Christ she meet in the Eucharist each day revealed to her His presence in the poor.
Blessed Teresa also reminds us that if Christ is present in the poor, we have much to learn from them. They teach us about human dignity, patience, and wisdom. It is, as Blessed Teresa said, a priviledge to live with and serve the poor.
It is tempting to turn away from the difficulty of suffering, to let someone else handle it, to hope it will go away. Sometimes we are even tempted to take pleasure in the suffering of others or, at the very least, rest complacently in our belief that suffering was unavoidable or even deserved.
But when we listen to Jesus, when we see how Blessed Teresa put flesh onto His words and what joy it brought to the suffering, even if for only the brief moments before they passed from this life, how can we continue to think this way?
"In the Eucharist, I see Christ in the appearance of the bread. In the slums, I see Christ in the ... poor. Sometimes we meet Jesus rejected and covered in filth in the gutter. Sometimes we find Jesus stuffed into a drain, or moaning with pain from sores or rotting with gangrene, or even screaming from the agony of a broken back. The most distressing disguise calls for even more love from us."
"We can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by the society -- completely forgotten, completely left alone. That is the greatest poverty of the rich countries."
-- Mother Teresa

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This pamphlet, written by Amy Welborn, is available from Our Sunday Visitor in packages of 50 for $14.95 plus S&H. Click here to order»
Request a single, sample copy by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelopes to Bl. Mother Teresa Pamphlet, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750.

Learn more about Mother Teresa

Our Sunday Visitor has created a Flash presentation to help illustrate the love of Blessed Mother Teresa. Click the image below to learn more about her life and work.

Fr. Langford on Catholic Spotlight

Father Joseph Langford was interviewed on the Catholic Spotlight on Dec. 1, 2008. Find the details and the podcast here»

From the 'Foreword'

The book you hold in your hands is itself the fruit of an encounter — one that took place years ago, as you will read, through the mediation of a photograph on the cover of a paperback book. As Providence would have it, that seemingly insignificant occurrence progressively involved Father Joseph Langford in Mother Teresa’s life and work, to the point of founding with her the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, something for which I personally am particularly grateful. Throughout the years, he has prayed, reflected, and written on the charism — spirituality and mission — given to Mother Teresa for her religious family, striving to discover and articulate its depths and implications, something Mother Teresa herself did not do. This book can be said to be a synthesis of his work. It lays a groundwork for others to follow and build upon, for, as we discovered through her private letters contained in Come Be My Light, Mother Teresa’s charism, like her holiness, contains unsuspected profundity yet to be fully appreciated.
With his distinctive style and gift of eloquence, Father Joseph delves into the questions about Mother Teresa that shaped his own spiritual journey since that first encounter with her — and through her, with God — thirty-six years ago. In Secret Fire, he not only presents his reflections on what made Mother Teresa who she was and how we, too, can become who we are called to be, but provides meditations that have been a source of grace to many over the years.
In the last years of her life, Mother Teresa would exhort those she met, either individuals or groups, to take up the challenge to strive after holiness: “I want — I will — with God’s grace — be — holy.” May these pages enrich that striving and encourage you on your way.

FR. BRIAN KOLODIEJCHUK, M.C.
Postulator
Director, Mother Teresa Center
Editor, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

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