Fr. Van Exem and Mother Teresa

• Fr. Van Exem was a polyglot, fluent in Arabic, English, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Sanskrit.
• Van Exem came to India to foster Christian-Muslim dialogue.
• Van Exem's relationship with Teresa evolved from spiritual direction to assisting in her ministry.
• Van Exem initially suggested Teresa take a few months to discern her call to minister to the poor.

Guidance on Leaving the Loreto Sisters

• Van Exem advised Teresa on seeking permission to leave the Loreto Sisters.
• Teresa had two options: petition the Vatican directly for a quicker resolution or go through the archbishop of Calcutta, Ferdinand Périer, a Belgian Jesuit.
• An endorsement from Périer would aid her appeal to Vatican officials; his disapproval meant appealing to Rome.
• Van Exem advised Teresa to obtain a release from her Loreto vows through her order's general superior.
• Van Exem strongly recommended going through the archbishop.
• He helped her write a letter to the archbishop, admitting she couldn't compose it alone, and gave her counsel for meeting Périer.
• Van Exem volunteered to personally deliver Teresa's letter and advocate for her.
• Jesus’ "I thirst" expressed his intense desire for love and companionship, not just physical thirst.
• The horror of crucifixion enveloped victims in unbearable solitude, often overlooked.
• Victims were face-to-face with onlookers unable to help, heightening their feelings of loneliness.
• Teresa recognized "I thirst" as a symbol of Jesus's longing for love in his final moments, and that Christ thirsted for kindness, love, and compassion through the world's poor.
• Mother Teresa observed that the thirst for love was felt universally, even among the wealthy.
• The need for love was especially obvious among the affluent, whose comfortable lives were internally marred by loneliness and alienation.
• Her experience of Christ on the Darjeeling train convinced her to leave the Loreto Sisters and focus her energies on serving the poor.
• Leaving the Sisters of Loreto was difficult because obedience to the Lord both joyful and unsettling, and because working with children made Teresa the 'happiest nun'.

The Significance of "I Thirst"

• Christ wanted to embark on a completely new ministry.
• Teresa described hearing a call in her "quiet, intimate prayer".
• Teresa led a retreat for her Loreto sisters after returning from Darjeeling, using Christ's words "I thirst" as its theme.
• "I thirst" became a key spiritual point of reference for Teresa even before her defining experience traveling to Darjeeling.
• The words "I thirst" were inscribed in a prominent place in every one of the order's chapels, generally by the altar.
• Mother Teresa rarely discussed her experience on the train to Darjeeling.
• In a March 1993 document referred to as the "Varansi Letter", she expressed her shyness in speaking about Jesus' thirst.

Progressing from initial vows

• The final vows were considered unbreakable.
• Van Exem convinced Teresa that her general superior would know what to do.
• Teresa obeyed the archbishop and asked to be secularized in the letter to the Loreto motherhouse in Ireland.
• In only a month, the Loreto motherhouse approved her request: "Since this is manifestly the will of God".
• Permission was provided to write to the congregation in Rome to apply for the indult.

Approvals

• Approval of an indult of exclaustration from Teresa’s general superior, allowing her to remain a nun outside the order, failed to change the archbishop’s perspective.
• The archbishop demanded that Teresa request secularization when she wrote to Rome.
• Teresa obeyed, and Périer forwarded her letter with his own evaluation to the Vatican in mid-February.
• Request to leave Loreto was granted by the Vatican in just four months.
• Vatican sent Teresa and indult of secularization and one of exclaustration, letting her choose.
• Teresa composed herself in prayer before hearing the Vatican decision brought from Fr. Van Exem.

A Minor Setback

• Archbishop Périer cautiously gave Teresa a one-year trial period for her efforts among the poor.
• Three years after her death, Teresa referenced the "strong grace of Divine Light and Love" from her 1946 train journey.
• Her experience of "God's infinite longing to love and to be loved" marked the true start of the Missionaries of Charity.
• The interior locutions she heard in the train persisted until mid-year after.
• Jesus affectionately referred to Teresa as "My own spouse" and "My own little one".
• Jesus urged Teresa regularly was asked to show compassion for the poor.
• Mother Teresa understood that all humans are created in the likeness of God.
• She understood helping those in need meant serving Christ.
• After two decades living in Calcutta's poorest areas, Mother Teresa had not understood what it meant to see Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor.
• While in deep prayer, she comprehended Christ as a "distressing disguise".
• Christ on the cross longed for something to quench physical thirst, similar to how Dalit women, children, and men thirsted for material aid.

Resistance

• Périer’s initial reaction was discouraging due to his cautious nature; he wanted to verify Teresa’s calling.
• He knew the challenge of initiating Teresa’s type of ministry after four decades working in Calcutta.
• He was concerned that a ministry to native Indian Dalits would face resistance from higher castes.
• Périer was annoyed that someone new to India was lecturing him on ministry to the poor.
• Périer stated to Van Exem that he and others were trying to tell the nuns to leave their convents as if it was the will of God.

No action

• For at least a year, no action was to be taken.
• Périer instructed Van Exem to have Teresa keep her desire to leave Loreto a secret.
• A panel of priests, also including Van Exem, were to advise him on Teresa's response.
• Teresa's superiors dispatched her to the Loreto convent in Asansol, three hours from Calcutta by train.
• It is unclear whether the posting was coincidental, or if it was suggested to Teresa's superiors by Périer.
• Even though Teresa kept silent about her new calling, her Sisters in Calcutta sensed something wasn't right, and sent her away hoping a change of scenery would fix things.

New Rules

• Recall her to Loreto or even secularize her if her work failed.
• Teresa purchased three cheap saris with blue stripes, which became the order's habit.
• The blue border was chosen to honor the Virgin Mary.
• The Loreto Sisters sensed something was up with Teresa.

Reactions

• Her announced departure shocked them.
• Her Loreto superior in Calcutta was so dismayed she took to her bed for a week.
• Some Loreto Sisters were angry and cautioned not to criticize or gossip about Teresa's new ministry.
• Fr. Van Exam tried to calm and console the nuns.
• Teresa would either succeed, confirming that her ministry was God's will; or she would fail and return to Loreto.
• Teresa took off the Loreto habit in mid-August 1948, replacing it with a new sari.
• She slipped away from the Loreto compound without fanfare.
• At thirty-eight years old, she had spent most of her formalative years as a Loreto Sister.
• Although excited to follow the call she received on the Darjeeling train.
• She was nervous as well.
• Teresa knew Dalits had no access to hospitals or doctors, so requiring first aid training.

Concerns

• Teresa worried that her fellow Sisters would think her vain or crazy.
• Six months after her call, she wrote about being laughed at, but declared a willingness to give up her reputation if asked by Christ.
• She was troubled by the prospect of not living among the poor.
• It required her to sacrifice regular meals, a settled routine, satisfaction of teaching children.
• It meant sacrificing Christ-required humility and material poverty, which she believed God wanted.
• Bureaucratic difficulty arose from the Loreto Sisters in working with the poor in the slums.
• She found it would take a third year after her experience on the Darjeeling train to even get the permission she needed to begin.
• Fr. Celeste Van Exem, a Belgian Jesuit, provided aid.

Initial Trip

• The journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling was arduous.
• The route began congested going to Calcutta's Howrah Railway Station.
• First Stop: Siliguri over five hundred kilometers away.
• Passengers then transferred to the steep sixty-four kilometer climb to Darjeeling on a narrow, two-foot-gauge track.
• A mechanical breakdown or buckled rails could delay an already exhausting Teresa.
• No record of how long the journey took.
• September 10, marks her second calling to leave the Loreto Sisters and serve the poorest of the poor.
• For years, Mother Teresa never talked about the train experience, except to say that it wasn't a vision or rapture.

Change of Direction

• The order to go to Asansol, while initially meant as a punitive measure by the archbishop, turned into a blessing.
• During her six months there, Mother Teresa had a series of ecstatic experiences, describing it as intimacy with God.
• Despite Teresa seeing these experiences as divine gifts, Archbishop Périer seemed unimpressed.
• While Teresa was in Asansol, Périer returned to Europe, planning consult with two fellow Jesuits about the Loreto Sister's petition.
• Périer was startled after that Fr. Van Exem knew both of those Jesuits.
• Périer forbid Van Exem from writing the men of Teresa.

Rejection

• When Teresa returned to Calcutta after being away for six months, began appealing regularly to the archbishop.
• The two priests in Europe, one a canon lawyer, found no obstacle to permit her.
• She was allowed to ask her general superior to request for a release from vows.
• To ask for an indult of secularization, which would strip her identity.
• Teresa would have her marriage to Christ ended.
• "God was calling me to give up all and to surrender myself to him in the service of the poorest of the poor in the slums".
• Traveling from Calcutta to Darjeeling would begin by the process of slogging through jammed streets to get to the Howrah Railway Station. The train's stop was Siliguri over five hundred kilometers away from Darjeeling.
• Passengers could potentially be delayed because of chance because there could be mechanical or heat buckled rail problems.
• September 10 represents the anniversary where Teresa experienced her second calling to leave Loreto to serve the poor.
• Mother Teresa for years refused to speak about what she experienced, except to say that it wasn't necessarily a vision or rapture.

Fr. Van Exem, a polyglot, played a crucial role in Mother Teresa's ministry. He advised her on leaving the Loreto Sisters to minister to the poor, suggesting she seek permission through the archbishop of Calcutta. His guidance was instrumental in shaping Teresa's path.