Mother Teresa wrote that one day at Holy Communion, she heard Jesus say, "I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so united to me as to radiate my love on souls."
It was through these communications of the Eucharistic Jesus that Mother Teresa received her directions for forming her congregation of the Missionaries of Charity.
"She was so united with Jesus," Fr. Vazhakala explained, "that she was able to radiate not her love, but Jesus' love through her, and with a human expression."
Jesus told her what sort of nuns he wanted her order to be filled with: "'I want free nuns covered with the poverty of the Cross. I want obedient nuns covered with the obedience of the Cross. I want full-of-love nuns covered with the charity of the Cross,'" Fr. Vazhakala related.
According to the Missionary, Jesus asked her, "Would you refuse to do this for me?" "In fact, Jesus told her in 1947," Fr. Vazhakala explained, "'I cannot go alone to the poor people, you carry me with you into them.'"
After this period of joy and consolation, around 1949, Mother Teresa started to experience a "terrible darkness and dryness" in her spiritual life, said Fr. Vazhakala. "And in the beginning she thought it was because of her own sinfulness, unworthiness, her own weakness."
Mother Teresa's spiritual director at the time helped her to understand that this spiritual dryness was just another way that Jesus wanted her to share in the poverty of the poor of Calcutta.
This period lasted nearly 50 years, until her death, and she found it very painful. But, Fr. Vazhakala shared that she said, "If my darkness and dryness can be a light to some soul let me be the first one to do that. If my life, if my suffering, is going to help souls to be saved, then I will prefer from the creation of the world to the end of time to suffer and die."
People around the world know about Mother Teresa's visible acts of charity toward the poor and sick in the slums of Calcutta, but "the interior life of Mother is not known to people," said Fr. Vazhakala.
Mother Teresa's motto, and the motto of her congregation, was the words of Jesus, "I thirst." And that they could quench the thirst of Jesus by bringing souls to him. "And in every breathing, each sigh, each act of mind, shall be an act of love divine. That was her daily prayer. That was what was motivating her and all the sacrifices, even until that age of 87, and without resting," he said.
Mother Teresa never rested from her work during her life on earth, and she continues to "work" for souls from heaven. "When I die and go home to God, I can bring more souls to God," she said at one point, Fr. Vazhakala noted.
She said, "I'm not going to sleep in heaven, but I'm going to work harder in another form."--CNA
(Mary Shovlain contributed to this report. This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 27, 2016.)
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