1. God's GREAT CIRCLE of Love... I use these verses at every wedding rehearsal, the last advice I give to the couple (and their wedding party) before the big day. I see it all as a circle that begins and ends with God's love. The Bible says that God "lavishes" love upon us. That's over the top love, an abundance. Proof of that? He gives us Jesus, an extraordinary and sacrificial gift. Our response? When we want to thank someone for a gift we often find a way to give something to the person who first gave to us. But here God suggests a surprise. To thank God for God's love God asks us to love others, to love one another, to even love our enemies. It culminates with the declaration, GOD is LOVE, and St. Paul says that the unique quality of real love is that it does not end. So, God loves us, and we love God back by being fully loving to others. It is that simple.
This is Mother Teresa's way of life and faith. She refuses to separate the two. If St. John is correct, that God is Love, then whatever is loving is of God, points to God, even results in God. When I wrote my book Christlikeness I subtitled it "Love as Evangelism." Love brings people of faith to deeper faith. Love brings people of no faith into the embrace of God that can then take root.
2. The WARMTH of a HAND ... Almost all of Jesus' healings require a touch. Something happens when one person reaches out to another, and there is contact, an intimacy. On one occasion Jesus spits on his hands, touches a blind man's eyes and the man can see. On another occasion a woman reaches out to touch Jesus' robe. He wasn't even aware of her, but at the touch he "felt virtue (energy, goodness) go out" from him to her. Even without a physical touch, Jesus' ministry was always personal. He called Zacchaeus by name, he personally invited his disciples to join him, he talked with the lepers and the demon possessed. Mother Teresa insists that a central ingredient for her work, her success, and our own Christian charity MUST BE a personal touch. Whoever we help, treat them with dignity; engage them as much as you can, even touch them. This is true for the beggar on the street, the sick in the hospital, the elderly in a nursing home.
3. LONELINESS. For those with the book, on page 79, she writes, "the greatest disease in the WEST is being unwanted, unloved, uncared for... the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is LOVE. The poverty in the West is loneliness, a hunger for LOVE." The nature of her work made loneliness obvious: a baby left at her doorstep, a dying person on the sidewalk, a leper ostracized by family and friends. Loneliness in the USA is often hidden away, unseen, and unnoticed. The work of love is to find loneliness and let love win.
4. JESUS, JESUS, JESUS. For Mother Teresa it is ALL about JESUS. In classic Christian theology Jesus is fully God, an innate part of the "God-head", one with God. And since God is the "alpha and omega, the beginning and the end", so is Jesus. A phrase I much admire is, "If you are having a hard time with the idea of God, if God is too remote or vague, don't worry. Concentrate on Jesus. Jesus is the near end of God". Mother Teresa concentrates on Jesus. In some ways she reverses the teaching of Jesus who said, "Whenever and whatever you do unto the least of others you do unto me". For Mother Teresa it is whatever/whenever you do unto Jesus you do unto the least of others". Either way gets the job done. For Mother Teresa this is a motivational tool. Loving Jesus, she is driven to be with him all the time, to give him all of herself, to do everything possible for him. In turning every single person she meets into a visible Jesus she gets to spend all of her time with him, do everything for him. Then no one is beyond your love. No one.
