Mother Teresa speaks to me

Mother Teresa has been speaking to me recently. Not directly, of course, but through a daily reflection book I have been reading this year, Do Something Beautiful for God.

Sometimes, they are pithy sayings like the entry for October 19:

Life is an adventure; dare it.

I, too, believe that life is an adventure, and I am doing my best to dare it, by taking risks, traveling, saying yes to opportunities. I am doing things I love and enjoying life. I wonder, though, if that is what Mother Teresa meant. Her life seemed totally devoted to service, so when she says adventure, what does she mean?

Last month, I participated in two opportunities to serve meals at two churches in the city, and I was reminded of the importance of direct contact with people who live closer to the edge than I do. Most of the volunteer work I do now is organizational (boards and committees), so cooking and serving meals felt like an invitation to return to the kind of service I used to do. A different kind of adventure.

Other times, Mother Teresa’s words seem to be inviting me to a movement in prayer. The entry for October 14: Every moment of prayer, especially before our Lord in the tabernacle, is a sure, positive gain. The time we spend each day sitting with God is the most precious part of the whole day.

This one spoke to me on several levels. First, I don’t tend to spend time before our Lord in the tabernacle, perhaps because it was not part of my religious upbringing and because I have to go someplace to find a tabernacle. I pray in the morning at home, but I know that when I have prayed in chapel (on retreat mostly), I have found it peaceful. When I read this reflection, I wondered why I don’t go to chapel more often.

That led me to reflect on my time in prayer every morning and if it is the most precious part of the whole day. I know that when I am on retreat, spending a whole week in silence and focused on God 24/7, my prayer seems to be deeper and more precious.  Perhaps the invitation is to be more attentive to God throughout the day—on retreat or not.

The entry for October 16: If you were to die today, what would others say about you? What was in you that was beautiful, that was Christlike, that helped others to pray better? Face yourself, with Jesus at our side, and do not be satisfied with just any answer. Go deep into the question. Examine your life.

When I left Pennsylvania nine years ago—after having lived there for twenty-eight years—friends had a going-away party for me and one after another, people said all kinds of wonderful things about me. My friend Ted said it was like being at my own wake, and I still smile when I recall that party. One thing that stood out to me was how many people thanked me for doing some small thing that I did not even remember doing—a kind word or some small favor that meant little to me but had a big impact on them.

That reminded me of Mother Teresa’s saying: Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

Leaving my losses at the foot of the cross

In the early 1980’s. while working at University Lutheran Church at the University of Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to go on a Palm Sunday weekend retreat with the Taize brothers from Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. I felt privileged to be among this group of pilgrims preparing for Holy Week. The retreat house was in rural Maryland, and signs of spring were all around us.

The small chapel where the brothers led us in Taize prayer services was dominated by a large wooden cross, and we were invited to meditate on the cross.

I remember sitting in front of the cross on Saturday afternoon and imagining the scene on the day Jesus died. I imagined Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalen (my patron saint) at the foot of the cross, overcome with sorrow, crying out in anguish. In my imagination, I joined them at the foot of the cross and looked up at the dying Jesus. I gasped at the sight of Jesus in agony.

As I sat with Mary and Mary Magdalen, I joined in their questioning the scene before them. Poor Mary, recalling the prophesy of Simeon that her heart would be pierced. How right he had been!

Poor Mary Magdalen, losing the only man she truly loved, the man who had given her hope and loved her into wholeness.

How could this be? Where was God in all this? How could God abandon Jesus and us?

Even though Jesus had suggested bad things would happen in Jerusalem, we had no idea he meant this bad. I wondered how I had missed the signs, how I had misinterpreted what Jesus had been saying. How blind I had been, how comfortable in my denial.

As we watched Jesus dying and heard him cry out to God in his abandonment, my heart broke, and I wept along with Mary and Mary Magdalen.

Tears streamed down my face as I thought of the losses in my own life, of times when things did not go as I had hoped, of unmet expectations and crushed dreams. I joined Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalen in the depths of despair. I questioned God’s love and care for me.

And then, one of the Taize brothers approached me and gently invited me to lay my burdens at the foot of the cross. “Lay them down,” he said, “and walk away.” He told me to trust that Jesus would take up whatever was weighing me down.

What? Just let go of the hurts I had been carrying around for so long? Let go of those losses that had shaped me? Those painful events that I had survived and carried as a badge of honor?

The brother sensed my hesitancy, my resistance, and reminded me of the resurrection. God did come through. God is faithful.

By the time we left that retreat house on Sunday afternoon, I felt ready to enter Holy Week, believing that God’s love would transform my sorrow into resurrection joy.

Originally published in Manresa Matters, Spring 2022.

Seeking

My morning meditation began with a quote from St. Francis: You are that which you are seeking.

What am I seeking? Good question.

Is that the same as, what do I desire?

That reflection led me to the question, what is my deepest desire?

As I pondered that question, the answer appeared: I want to be accepted.

This is not a new thought. I have long known that rejection is my primary brokenness; l’Arche taught me that.

People often asked me why I moved to l’Arche, a community where people with and without developmental disabilities live together in the spirit of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12).

What was the draw for me?

At first, I thought it was because I was already working with people who had disabilities, and this was just a more radical way of living out that mission. (I was trying to find the most radical way to live the Gospel, and this certainly seemed radical.)

As time went on, though, I came to understand my connection with people who had disabilities in a different light.

Jean Vanier, the founder of l’Arche, talked about the rejection people with disabilities can experience. Even at birth, a mother can involuntarily react negatively when told her newborn is disabled. She may change her opinion in time, but that initial reaction can be experienced by the newborn as rejection.

After I left l’Arche, I read How to be an Adult by David Richo, which invited me to discover my original wound. For me, it was rejection.

My mother’s first child was a boy, and she was thrilled. He was the proverbial apple of her eye. The next year, she had a girl—me.

I have often wondered if my mother knew beforehand that she did not want a daughter or if she only realized it when I was born. When the doctor said, “It’s a girl,” did she involuntarily blurt out ugh?

That is something I will never know.

What I have always known, though, is that I was not wanted, that something about me rubbed my mother the wrong way and that from the moment of my birth, she rejected me.

The people who lived in l’Arche seemed to intuitively understand this brokenness in me—much more clearly than I did at the time.

I remember praying in chapel one day and two of the men—both named Ross—entered chapel and sat on either side of me. They bowed their heads and joined me in silent prayer. I had never felt so accepted, so safe. It was as if they, and God, were saying, “We know your hurt, and we accept you as you are.”

In that moment, something cracked inside me. It felt like there had been a glass globe surrounding my wound, and their acceptance shattered the glass.

Their acceptance revealed to me this vulnerable place inside me.

Accepting my vulnerability and embracing my brokenness is what I seek.

What are you seeking? What is your deepest desire?