A story from Mother Teresa

The following is a story St Teresa of Calcutta told that wonderfully expresses the heart of her life and mission. It also invites each one to “be His light” by partaking in these humble deeds of love and compassion that may seem insignificant but are, in fact, nothing less than the means of radiating God’s love to each person we meet, thus transforming, little by little, the darkness of the world into His light. I will never forget the first time I came to Bourke (a town in New South Wales, Australia) and visited the sisters. We went to the outskirts of Bourke. There was a big reserve where all the Aborigines were living in those little small shacks made of tin and old card-board and so on. Then I entered one of those little rooms. I call it a house but it’s only one room, and inside the room was everything. So I told the man living there, “Please allow me to make your bed, to wash your clothes, to clean your room.” And he kept on saying, “I’m alright, I’m alright.”

And I said to him, “But you will be more alright if you allow me to do it.” Then at the end he allowed me. He allowed me in such a way that, at the end, he pulled out from his pocket an old envelope. He started opening it, and right inside there was a little photograph of his father and he gave me the photo to look at. I looked at the photo and I looked at him and I said, “You are so like your father.” He was so overjoyed that I could see the resemblance of his father on his face. I blessed the picture and I gave it back to him, and the photo went back in the pocket near his heart. After I cleaned the room I found in the corner of the room a big lamp full of dirt and I said, “Don’t you light this lamp, such a beautiful lamp. Don’t you light it?” He replied “For whom? Months and months and months nobody has ever come to me. For whom will I light it?” So I said “Won’t you light it if the Sisters come to you?” And he said “Yes.” So the sisters started going to him for only about 5 to 10 minutes a day, and they started lighting that lamp. After some time he got into the habit of lighting it himself. Slowly, slowly, the Sisters stopped going to him. But they used to go in the morning, just to say Hello. Then I forgot completely about that, and then after two years he sent word – “Tell Mother, my friend, the light she lit in my life is still burning.” I hope your light is burning bright, also to enlighten other people's lives.