Mother Teresa's Call Within A Call

The Call Within A Call

• Mother Teresa felt "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.”
• The journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling was arduous, beginning with a slog through jammed streets to Calcutta's Howrah Railway Station.
• The first stop was Siliguri, over 500 km away.
• Passengers disembarked there and transferred to the "Toy Train" for the steep 64 km climb to Darjeeling on a 2-foot-gauge track.
• Delays were caused by mechanical breakdowns or heat-buckled rail.
• On September 10, Teresa experienced her second calling to leave the Loreto Sisters to serve the poorest of the poor.
• The Missionaries of Charity annually celebrate this day as "Inspiration Day".
• Mother Teresa described it as a conviction that Christ wanted her to embark on a new ministry, and described it as a "call within a call" in quiet, intimate prayer
• She led a retreat after returning from Darjeeling and made the theme Christ's words "I thirst".
• Christ's words, "I thirst" spoken to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (John 4:7), and when dying on the cross (John 19:28) were of significant meaning.
• The message had something to do with ministering to marginalized people famished for both love and food.
• "I thirst" became a spiritual reference for Teresa before her experience, and it remained so after
• After she founded the Missionaries of Charity the words were inscribed by the altar in every chapel.
• Mother Teresa wrote in a March 1993 document that reads, "For me, Jesus' thirst is something so intimate so I have felt shy until now to speak to you of Sept, 10th--I wanted to do as Our Lady who kept all these things in her heart?"
• It is referred to as the Varansi Letter because it was named after the place in which it was composed
• Teresa said that "Jesus' words on the wall of every MC chapel, they are not from the past only, but alive here and now, spoken to you.”
• Teresa referred to "the strong grace of Divine Light and Love" she received on that 1946 train journey, she described her experience of "God's infinite longing to love and to be loved"
• She said it was the real beginning of the Missionaries of Charity.
• Jesus addressed her as "My own spouse" and "My own little one," and persistently asked her to take his compassion to the poor.
• Jesus urged her to "Come, be My light".
• As a Roman Catholic Teresa was familiar with Matthew 25 that helping people in need serves Christ.
• The poor were, in her eyes, Christ in "distressing disguise."
• Jesus thirsted for material aid in Dalit women, children, and men.
• Jesus's "I thirst" was also an expression of intense desire for love and companionship.
• Crucifixion enveloped victims in surreal solitude where they longed for love Jesus felt in his final moments.
• Christ thirsted not only for material necessities, but even more for love, kindness and compassion.
• Mother Teresa observed that the thirst for love was felt by everyone, even the wealthy.
• It was common among the well-off who possessed all material comforts.
• They experienced loneliness and alienation.
• Her time on the Darjeeling train convinced her to leave the Sisters of Loreto and go toward serving the poor.
• Working made her the "happiest nun in the world," and forsaking it was a "great sacrifice.”
• Teresa worried her fellow Sisters would think her vain when she told them of her call to a new ministry.
• Six months after her call, she wrote, "From my Superiors down, I know they will laugh at me. They will think me a fool, proud, mad, etc."
• Teresa acknowledged that she felt that God wanted her to do more and be poor with the poor.
• She was tasked with embracing both genuine material poverty and humility
• Two years passed after her experience on the Darjeeling-bound train before she received permission to leave the Loreto Sisters
• A third year after that before her new ministry was officially sanctioned.
• Fr. Celeste Van Exem, a Belgian Jesuit polyglot, was Teresa's confessor .
• van Exem had felt a call to foster Christian-Muslim dialogue.
• He told her to take a few months to discern her desire to minister to the poor.
• Van Exem offered her counsel to seek permission to leave the Loreto Sisters by petitioning the Vatican directly.
• She could alternatively go through the archbishop of Calcutta, Ferdinand Périer, also a Belgian Jesuit.
• van Exem advised that she needed to be released by her Loreto vows by the order's general superior.
• Van Exem helped her write a letter to the archbishop and gave her counsel on what to say to Périer for interview to advocate for her.
• Périer was cautious, he wanted to ensure her calling was genuine before providing any support.
• He knew how difficult it was to launch the kind of ministry.
• Périer was concerned that a special ministry would meet with resistance.
• He was annoyed that a priest who'd been in India for only a short time thought it proper to lecture him.
• Périer instructed Van Exem to tell Teresa to keep her desire a secret.
• Périer commissioned a panel of priests, including Van Exem, to advise him on the petition.
• Teresa was dispatched to the Loreto convent in Asansol, a town three hours by train from Calcutta.
• Van Exem speculated that Teresa's Sisters sensed something was incorrect, and they sent her away hoping to set things straight.
• Teresa experienced a series of ecstatic experiences where she felt united with God.

Road to Freedom

• During Teresa's six months there, she experienced a series of ecstatic experiences in which she felt united to God.
• As she recalls, "as if Our Lord just gave Himself to me—to the full. The sweetness & consolation & union of those 6 months passed but too soon.”
• He considered these experiences divine gifts, Archbishop Périer was unimpressed and concerned

The Final Approval

• Prier returned to Europe for a visit, and made plans to consult with two Jesuits about the Loreto Sister's petition
• Prier ordered Van Exem not to write them about Teresa, lest he interfere with their objectivity
• After Prier returned to Calcutta after her six months away, she began regularly appealing for a decision with the archbishop
• The two priests had advised that there was no immediate obstacle to her petition
• In late 1947 or early 1948, Périer gave Teresa permission to write her general superior requesting release from her vows.

Indult of Secularization

• The archbishop made the request that Tereas request for an indult of secularization
• The indult of secularization would strip her of her identity as a vowed nun in the Roman Catholic Church
• Tereas found this demand terrifying; as far as she was concerned, her marriage to Christ that she entered into when she took her final vows was unbreakable.
• However Teresa obeyed the archbishop and asked to be secularized in the letter she sent to the Loreto motherhouse in Ireland
• The reply she received in only a month was stunning. "Since this is manifestly the will of God," the general superior wrote, "I give you permission to write to the congregation in Rome and to apply for the indult.
• The general superior gave permission to “ask for the indult of exclaustration
• However Archbishop still wanted her to request for Secularization

Final Decision

• Four months passed before Teresa had her response for decision with Rome
• The vatican granted her request to leave Loreto, and sent her both an indult of secularization and one of exclaustration, leaving it to her to choose.
• She needed some time to compose in prayer before hearing the decision.
• Archbishop Périer gave her a one-year trial to live with and serve the poorest of the poor
• She purchased three cheap saris, white ones with blue stripes, which would later become the habit of the new order she hoped to found.
• The blue border was chosen in honor of the Virgin Mary.

Departure

• Loreto sisters were divided on Teresas departure some believed she was going to the new ministry by God, while others were upset and betrayed
• Van Exam believed that Tereas will to either succeed and prove Gods will or she would fail to come back.
• Teresa left Loreto with one of the saris being worn
• She was thirty-eight years old, and the most formative years of her life had been spent as a Loreto Sister.
• He decided to train in first aid and basic medicine and interred for a half a year in Medical Mission sisters
• When a doctor she amputated a Dalit with scissors who fainted
• Navin Chawla, an Indian government official asked me the story