Thursday, May 24, 2012

Mother Teresa...or in my eyes, Saint Teresa


I honestly thought people would jump on yesterday’s question of the day.  About ½ as many as normally answer.  What one famous person, who has passed, would you ask a question, and only one, to?  A few people picked relatives.  But that wasn’t the question!  No, it’s ok…I know we all have someone who has passed who we wish we could talk to one more time…

The answers that I did get were great.  Elvis, Johnny Carson, Abe Lincoln, Anna Nicole Smith, Princess Diana, Dick Clark, Michael Jackson, Ron Santo, Jackie Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, and Jesus.  And the questions were great as well. 

There are a lot of people I would love to go and ask a question.  People who have passed.  Famous people.  Any Kennedy really.  Someone who passed on the Titanic.  Martin Luther King.  Abe Lincoln.  Princess Diana.  Walter Payton.  Quite a diverse group really.  Mostly because of the impact they still have on all of our lives, in ways most of us don’t even know.

But, I can only pick one.  And I pick Mother Teresa.  For pretty much the exact same reason Amy Jo wanted to talk to her as well.  Why all the suffering?  But not just that.  More than that, what allowed her to maintain her faith in spite of it all?  In spite of all of the suffering she witnessed, how on earth did she still have any faith in humanity? I personally would have given up long before.  I couldn’t see that much hate, anger, and suffering, any of it and ever believe that the outcome would be worth it all.  I will let my friends at Wikipedia tell you everything you need to know about her.  More or less, she is still not a Saint, because according to the Catholic Church a 2nd miracle has not been attributed to her.  I am pretty sure in my eyes that fact that she was so humble was a miracle in and of itself.  I would also want to know her real opinion of the Church.  I know how she felt about Jesus…I want to know how she felt about the institution.  One of the most profound things she ever said, that remains with me daily…she said this when she accepted her award for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979…

"Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult."

She was and will remain a far better woman and human being than I will ever be.  I have a lot of compassion in my heart, but not to that degree…and I haven’t seen a hundredth of the horribleness she had. 

My absolute favorite Mother Teresa quote…and I may have already blogged this before, but more people need to live this way. 


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