Message from ‘The Mother Teresa Center of the Missionaries of Charity’ in response to my sharing of this gracefilled meeting with their Foundress.
Dear Dr. Joseph,
Peace of Jesus!
I write to you from the Mother Teresa Center to express our deep gratitude for your sharing your testimony of your encounter with Mother Teresa, a precious treasure indeed.
I had to smile when you shared about that special: IN sign at the Mother House Door! I know most of the people who wanted to meet Mother specially those who would come from far away countries, they would hold their breath as they turned into that narrow alley and looked expectantly at that sign and seeing IN, they would be delighted and seeing OUT, they would be dejected!
Now Mother is buried there so the sign is permanently IN because they can come now and they can always find her there.
Dr. Joe, there are two coincidences (God-incidences) about your sharing about Mother as two things highly connect with me, one of the date of your meeting Mother and second what you shared about your feeling of the presence you experienced when you met her.
The date: In July 1989, I was also at Mother House for my formation; my First Year of Novitiate as we have 2 Years of Novitiate formation and I took my Vows after that in December 1990 and so maybe I even saw you there seated on that cement bench with Mother or when she took you around showing the Chapel and where the Novices live and are trained. So I was one of the Novices then and in the midst of our work going around the courtyard and the Chapel verandah, we would hide at times to have our own personal glimpse of Mother as she brought visitors around and peep from some corner to see her and so maybe I was behind some door looking at her and could be I saw you even!
A simple meeting with Mother sitting on that famous bench where we saw Mother often meeting all the people who came to see her: rich and poor alike, believers and non-believers, Bishops and simple Priests and Religious, Princes and paupers and specially her beloved poorest of the poor and it was that famous bench from where many of the people she met found their special calling or the grace to answer God’s call and vocation and the beginning of many remarkable missions to benefit the world and the Church.
It is amazing to know that you had 30 minutes or maybe even more with Mother, to share with her about your journey of beginning Medical School, and what a blessing that you could pray together; she prayed for you and you prayed for her! I can imagine the scene when she showed you the chapel: her treasure house and where her most precious treasure: Jesus abided and yes, she rightly said and all of us MCs can also say the same that she would not be able to do the work she did without going to Mass every day and receiving strength from her Eucharistic Lord.
Your keen observation of Mother being highly intelligent, with a strong sense of mission, determination in her calling, and of course about her being an administrative genius is right on the point and yet, yes, she would make time from her demanding schedule to talk to anyone whom Jesus would bring across her path seeing Jesus in them and giving Jesus to them.
Amen to that last sentence of your testimony that being with Mother “That must have been what it would have been like to meet Jesus.”
When I met Mother for the first time in Jan 1988, that was exactly what I felt and concluded. I just met her that day for few minutes when she was welcoming all of us to Calcutta and we were 120 Sisters waiting in line to get her blessing. She looked right at me, blessed me with her hand placed on the top of the head and said: God bless you! That’s all, but I was in front of Jesus at that moment and I knew I was with someone who loved me unconditionally and accepted me as I am and as if I was the only person in the world and only Jesus could do that or at that moment: only Jesus in Mother!
We are also grateful for your giving us permission to keep your testimony in our records and to use it if needed for our projects and specially this will be so helpful for the inspiration of the future generation who have not met Mother like you did but your sharing will assist them also in drawing closer to Jesus.
We pray for you and your loved ones, for your ministry as a doctor, for your ministry in going around and sharing about Jesus and specially for the success of your articles on the Shroud of Turin and your book: The Crucifixion of Jesus where you shared the incredible results of your examination on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. May Mother Teresa intercede for you and may all this bear much fruit for the Kingdom of Jesus.
Please keep us in your prayers that the message of Mother Teresa through the work we are doing, may shine forth in the world of today, that "God still loves the world through you and through me today;" that the poorest of the poor, the unwanted, the lonely, the rejected and each one of us may know and experience how much God loves us personally.
God bless you
A Missionary of Charity Sister
