You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2009.
A recording from last week’s meeting. At the beginning of the recording, you’ll also find our usual opening for the Vesper Light. For those that have not been with us before in our meetings, our version of the Office of the Vesper Light has been adapted to honor our Jewish heritage and to make it interfaith for guests that join us throughout Atlanta. Find a quiet place during the day and enjoy. God’s Peace.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
My latest icon of Saint/Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. (1910-1997) Founder of the Missionaries of Charity, M. Teresa was a humble Albanian nun who experienced a direct calling from Christ while in India to care for the forgotten poor, “to quench His thirst upon the cross.” Completely dedicated to her calling, she eventually was granted permission to start the Relgious Order of the Missionaries of Charity in India and would live to see her work expand throughout the world. Despite her tremendous example of devotion and compassion to the lost and oppressed, M. Teresa experienced a great seperation from the presence of the Divine for the majority of her ministry following her initial calling. Nonetheless, she was dedicated to God and to loving the poor and dying who were her Christ on earth. Early in her ministry when she first felt the presence of God withdraw from her, she began to recite the simle prayer “O Scared Heart of Jesus, I put my trust in thee.” The Sacred Heart, Jesus’ most human connection to the world and promise of mercy for us all was what sustained her through her long dark night. To those she met, she was the radiance of Love in the world. Inside, she was left longing for the personal experience of that same Love.
This icone depicts M. Teres holding the source of her devotion, the Sacred Heart, as she is clothed in the simple habit of her Order – the common dress of Indian peasants. The background is green in honor of her Indian home. Though Rome is still in the process of deciding her canonization, classifiying her only as “Blessed” at the moment, I have no problem calling her Saint in this icon, recognizing the saintly life she led and the selfless work she did in the midst of spiritual toil. With her name is the crosier, signifying her status as Mother Superior of her Order.
She was dedicated to helping the poor, the forgotten, the dying, the outcast, the loney, and towards the end of her life, those dying of AIDS.
St. Teresa, pray for us that we may look beyond ourselves to be the source of God’s Love to those who need it most. Amen.
Contemplative Musings 