Dear Brother Knights of the Eucharist. My wife and I watched the KofC produced movie on Mother Teresa last week. I hope it comes to theaters again because more people need to see it. Actually, everybody should see it. There will be no true justice, no end to racism, to sexual abuse, to the violence against persons, to the self abuse of addictions, there will be no peace until we as individuals and as nations see and value the inherent dignity of the human person created in the image of God, not only in others but also in ourselves.
In her address to the dignitaries present when she received the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa stated, “The greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own child in her own womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other?”
Mother Teresa was the world’s most credible witness for a culture of life precisely because she saw the face of Christ in those she served. Many of you have heard of Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul”, which lasted 50 years. This was a period when she never felt the consolation and affirmation of God’s presence interiorly. What I saw in her life story though, was that she was never without Jesus. In every face she touched, every sore she bandaged, every body she bathed, every hungry mouth she fed, she was seeing and touching Jesus. I think that was her consolation.
How did she do it? How do all the Missionaries of Charity do it every day, with a smile, with joy? They begin every day in adoration. They begin every day receiving the Eucharist. Mother Teresa said, “I can’t do this work without having the Eucharist every day”. We see this connection in the film – the connection between Jesus present in the Eucharist and Jesus present in the poorest of the poor.
In the first minutes of the film we hear Mother Teresa say something like, “unless you see Jesus in the Eucharist, you won’t see him in the faces of those you serve. Then we are just social workers”.
I urge you therefore brother Knights of the Eucharist, spend some time with Jesus. When you receive him at Mass in the Eucharist, talk to him. And let him talk to you. For that few minutes after you receive him, don’t be thinking about breakfast, or what you’re going to do after Mass. For a few minutes you have a most intimate connection with Jesus. Don’t squander it.