Comes Mother Teresa
Nobel laureate Mother Teresa (1910–1997) with the family she founded have been picking up those frozen skeletons Du Fu laments.
One of Mother’s Sisters was reported to have found a man on the street, and she lifted him up. With the man in her arms, she found the skin and flesh of his back stuck to the ground—whole piece.
Mother herself received countless bundles into her bosom, one of which presented what appeared as dry twigs—that turned out to be a child’s legs.
A pop star once told Mother Teresa, “Ethopia is an open hell!” Mother Teresa’s response was, “Ethopia is an open Calgary, not an open hell.”
Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, in Mother Teresa. A Call to Mercy: Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve speaks of lived theology:
... our attitute is not from “above downward,” as it were, where we think ourselves superior to those we serve...
If anyone did try to save the world. Mother did, like a star. Mother’s work has been inter-continental. Mother did everything: Mother fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless, nursed the sick, visited the imprisoned, buried the dead, taught the students. Mother took care of everybody: the poorest of the poor materially, and the poorest of the poor spiritually.
Mother embodies it all, telling d:
we are to love until it hurts;
when we find others stepping on our toes, God is in fact messaging us with a broken pencil;
priests are to say each Mass like their first Mass, their last Mass and their only Mass.
How did those timeless words of wisdom surge forth from such a simple lady? What made Mother a saint? My personal attribution would be that Mother exclusively received all the blessings others don’t receive: exclusive blessings from exclusive beings others find untouchable.