The poor are great!
The poor are wonderful!
The poor are very generous!
They give us much more than what
we give them!
-Mother Teresa
Today I volunteered at one of Mother Teresa’s many houses for the poor around Calcutta. As I was sitting in morning mass I prayed a prayer that she and all her Sisters prayed each morning.
Lord, make me an instrument of your PEACE:
where there is hatred let me sow LOVE;
where there is injury, PARDON;
where there is doubt, FAITH;
where there is despair, HOPE;
where there is darkness, LIGHT;
where this is sadness, JOY.
Lord, may I not so much seek
to be consoled as to CONSOLE;
to be understood as to UNDERSTAND;
to be loved as to LOVE.
Because it is in giving that we receive,
in pardoning that we are pardoned.
I found myself dressing wounds in a home for mentally handicapped women and women with psychological disorders. I was bandaging the bedsores on a woman’s bottom when through the window to the next room, I heard her begin to cry. I could see that nurses were attending to her, washing and putting something on her body. Through the window it looked as though she’d been burned. I imagined she was in incredible pain. She was screaming out. When I finished bandaging the woman that I was currently working with I followed her cries.
She was lying in the last bed in a small narrow room. She held her hands just under her chin. They were limply lifted in the air, shaking with her sobs. Fat tears and puss rolled out of her eyes. I was now standing over her and I took my first very good look at her. From the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, every centimeter of her skin was hard, flaking and peeling off in large gray chunks. Now I could see that she wasn’t so much weeping from pain as she was from sheer insufferable discomfort. She was clawing at herself. Tearing at her face, her head, her hands, her legs, her stomach with her gnarled, black fingernails. She was itching. I knelt beside her and took her hands in mine. I began singing. “Jesus loves you this I know. For the Bible tells me so. . . .” In the midst of my song a Sister approached me and handed me some oil in a small jar.
The woman wanted me to put it on her flaking skin. I started at the top of her head, singing in hymns, I began massaging the oil into her scalp. Down her face, over her cheeks and eyes. I looked deep into her eyes. Light still flickered and shined behind them. She was still weeping and crying, but her eyes smiled at me.
There you are. I see you, Jesus. I see you.
I massaged oil into her hands, her arms, her shoulders, down onto her chest, and stomach. As I sang she closed her eyes and her weeping stopped. I massaged the oil into her legs and her coarse peeling feet. I wanted to cry. I held myself together. I couldn’t imagine her suffering. The itching skin of a peeling sunburn to me, was barely tolerable; I couldn’t imagine what she must have been feeling.
I knelt by her bed and she gave me her hand. I began to lightly scratch and tickle her arm. Her face lit up at the comforting sensation- her first smile. I continued to lightly scratch as she rotated her arm in my hand, making sure I covered every inch. Time to switch. I tickled her other arm. Now she was calm. Her eyes were closed. I began singing How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.
” . . . . I will not boast in anything, no gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus Christ his death and resurrection!” Her eyes closed; she was at rest. I said His name and a smile inched its way across her face as she began to nod. I repeated the verse several times. Each time she heard His name, she smiled and nodded.
I finished the hymn and she opened her eyes.
“Auntie, How are you?”
I was a little caught off guard by her question,
“I am good. I am here with you! How are you?”
“I am fine Auntie, I am fine. . . . Auntie, what is your name?”
“My name is Kristen. you?”
“Shimona.” She continued to smile. I continued holding her hands.
“May I pray for you?”
“Yes.”
I begin to pray: alleviation of her suffering, relief from pain, comfort and love and a deep sense of the presence of the Lord, healing, and knowledge that God loves her.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” I smiled at her.
“Shimona, guess what?!”
“What?!”
“I love you.”
“I love you to Auntie. I love you too.”
At the end of the day I knelt by her bed one more time. As I said my good byes she brought her hands to her mouth and began blowing me kisses repeatedly.
“Good bye Auntie. Thank you. Thank you. I love you Auntie.”
“Good bye Shimona. I love you too. I won’t forget you.”
“Nor I you. I love you Auntie. Thank you.”
It is very possible that you will find human beings, surely very near you,
needing affection and love. Do not deny them these.
Show them, above all, that you sincerely recognize that they are human beings,
that they are important to you.
Who is that someone?
That person is Jesus himself:
Jesus who is hidden under the guise of suffering!
-Mother Teresa.
