“We can do no great things: only small things with great love.”
n Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1946, a young nun was sitting on the train to Darjeeling, India, for a few days of prayer and reflection.
The engine was chugging up into the mountains of the Himalayas. The nun looked out the window at the scenic splendor and prayed out her gratitude in silence. Then, an image came to the fore of her mind’s eye: as if all the poor and suffering people she had seen for twenty years as a Sister of Loretto were passing by the train.
This time, however, it was different. From the silence she heard a call, a call within a call: “Leave your order and go help the poor and live among them.”
“Mother Teresa reminds everyone that the evangelizing mission of the church passes through charity, nourished by prayer and listening to God’s word… In the smile, the gestures and the words of Mother Teresa, Jesus has tread once again on the roads of the world as the Good Samaritan.”
Pope John Paul II
Oct. 19, 2003
Two years later she left the Loretto Sisters and her safe teaching job and went to live with and care for the poor.
“It was in the train – she later recalled – I heard the call to give up all and follow him to the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”
Little did she know that this journey was about to change her life for ever…
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)