"TAKE NOTHING IWTH YOU."

Homily for February 6^th, 2014: Mark 6:7-13. 

               When Jesus sent out his disciples he told them “to take nothing with them but a walking stick.” The lack of concern for material things shows the urgency of the disciples’ missionary task, and the need for dependence on God to supply whatever may be necessary. Could we do that?       

                    As an encouragement, I want to do what the Bible does repeatedly: tell you about someone who did fulfill Jesus’ demand to a remarkable degree. She was born in 1910 in what is now Albania and given the name Agnes in baptism. As a girl she heard about missionaries in India and dreamed of joining them. A Jesuit told her that the Loretto nuns, based in Dublin, worked in India. At age 18 Agnes, not knowing a word of English, journeyed to Ireland to become a Sister of Loretto. She would never see her home, or her mother, again. 

                     After only 6 weeks in Dublin, Agnes arrived in Calcutta. When she took vows as a Sister she took the name of the French Carmelite, Teresa. For some 15 years she taught in the Loretto Sisters= schools for Indian girls, becoming headmistress of a school for 300 pupils.

                     In 1946 Sister Teresa was traveling by train to her annual retreat when she received what should termed Aa call within a call: To give up all and follow Jesus into the slums C to serve him in the poorest of the poor. I knew it was his will and that I had to follow him. It was an order. I knew where I belonged, but I did not know how to get there.” Teresa exchanged her religious habit for the rough cotton sari of the poor, and went to live in a single room in the slums. Her only resources were 5 rupees, about a dollar. One by one former pupils joined her. They rose at 4:30, spent 2 hours in meditation and Mass, and then after a hurried breakfast set out for the slums, bearing baskets of food and medicines. Training her sisters was a primary concern. They were not to be social workers, but contemplatives, able to see in the gravely ill and wretchedly poor AChrist in his distressing disguise.@

               At Mother Teresa’s death in September 1997 almost 4000 woman had joined her Missionaries of Charity, some here in St. Louis. I invoke her prayers every day. I invite you to the same, asking you to respond as I say: “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta – Pray for us.”