A Visit With Mother Teresa

The streets of Calcutta smoldered with rotting garbage, sweating bodies, and stale urine. The chaos in the streets was fascinating, overwhelming, and disturbing to me. How do people deal with all this hardship? How do they survive the poverty?

But once we were inside the Missionaries of Charity Motherhouse, I learned the answer. At the headquarters for Mother Teresa’s operation, all chaos ceased. Here, in the midst of the mayhem and stench of the streets of Calcutta, was an oasis of calm.

I was part of a group studying Bhakti yoga and meditation, and visiting holy sites in India. We were in Calcutta to see the mission and lend what support we could to Mother Teresa’s important work.

Much to our surprise and delight, Mother Teresa was in residence. She entered the room, small and bent, skin weathered with age, and face radiant with inner joy. She went around the group, made contact with each of us, patted my arm and made a sign of the cross over my head as a blessing.

“God loves all of us, his children, but especially the least among us. God asks us to help his dear ones, the poorest of the poor. I hope that when you return to your country, you will be moved to do that.”

Mother Teresa told us about hearing God’s call while riding the train in what was then Yugoslavia, “the whisper of intuition” that led her to India. She talked about the rigor of the schedule followed by The Missionaries of Charity — their practice of prayer and meditation each morning before leaving to work in the streets and again upon returning, before evening supper. She said daily prayer and meditation helped the nuns from getting disheartened by the great suffering all around them.

“You should pray and meditate every day, so you know that you are loved, so you feel the presence of God’s love in your life. This is the only way you can truly help others and serve the poorest of the poor. We have to give from a full heart, one that is saturated with love, overflowing to others. This is why you should meditate every day. So you can remember you are loved, letting it fill your heart and your body. Let it fill every cell of your being. Then, give it all away.”

In another instant, she was encircled by an entourage of sisters in blue-bordered saris, swooped away down the narrow hall, needed for pressing mission work.

Mother Teresa’s message was that giving should flow from a fullcup, inspired by the energy of prayer and meditation. Arising from the experience of being loved just as we are at this moment, without exception. The Missionaries of Charity themselves spend two hours each morning in liturgy and meditation. Before going out to serve the poorest of the poor, they steep in conscious contact with a Power greater than themselves. Fill up their hearts. In the evening when they return from working in the orphanages or in the streets, they spend another one to two hours in prayer and meditation. Refilling their hearts. They meditate before theyeat.

That’s how they can stand the unbearable suffering all around them. They spend time every day watering the seeds of their True Self with grace. That’s how they can give with such joy and generosity.

I vow to meditate with that kind of consistency and dedication.

Thérèse Jacobs Stewart, M.A., L.P., has been a practicing psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and international consultant for more than 28 years. She is the founder of St. Paul’s Mind Roads Meditation Center, which integrates contemplative practices from both east and west and serves as home of the St. Paul chapter of the Twelve Steps and Mindfulness meetings. For more information about her center and teaching schedule, click on www.mindroads.com.