Reading Mother Teresa--St. Francis

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, 

and the government will be on his shoulders. 

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor,

 Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

God allowed me to begin my repentance in this way: when I lived in sin, seeing    lepers was a very bitter experience for me. God himself guided me into their midst and among them I performed acts of charity. What appeared bitter to me became sweetness of the soul and body.

If you believe this line is unquestionably Mother Teresa’s, you’re mistaken. But it’s not difficult to understand how she might have said it. It’s actually St. Francis of Assisi’s own story, the story of his conversion. It could well have been MT’s. She might well have used his words.

There’s a scrubby cottontail nibbling at half-a-pan full of kernel corn just outside the patio door. His ears are perked, and he’s munching like an idiot, filling his belly. I have no idea if it’s a he, but the silly thing is cute as the dickens. He’s looking right at me, ten feet away.

There’s a fence up around our tomatoes to keep him and his cohorts out. If that fence wouldn’t be there and wouldn’t be a couple feet tall, our tomatoes would be munched to nubbins. I know a ton of friends who keep a .22 just inside the door, just for bunnies.

On the bird feeder outside, there’s an indigo bunting, a bird whose radiant blue plumage seems cartoon-like, something one could buy in a Hallmark store and then stick, for show, in a bouquet of lilacs. Just a few moments ago, an oriole sat up on a ledge picking at an orange I put up there.

St. Francis – Mother Teresa’s inspiration – had a thing for animals. He claimed to talk to them. One of the most memorable stories of his life concerns the manner by which he lectured a wolf who was terrorizing the village – lectured, as in “explained diligently.” The story goes that he told the wolf to stop preying on the townspeople, his finger right there in the wolf’s face. Then, reportedly, he told the town that that beast’s appetite would dissipate if they fed him it – so they did. Years later, when the animal died, the village mourned.

We’re talking 13th century ad, here, so that whole story is not on YouTube. What’s beyond question, however, is how much St. Francis of Assisi would love the animal circus going on outside my window this June morning.

Contemporarily, St. Francis is likely most heralded for becoming the namesake of the new Pope. I don’t doubt that Amazon has seen his biographies surge or spike in the last few months. Before that, what most all believers knew about him was his prayer for peace, the prayer Mother Teresa herself used at the outset of the speech she gave in acceptance when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. . . .” Most of us, Protestant and Catholic, know much of that famous prayer. Legions of believers have it up on their walls in brilliant cross-stitch. Thousands of variations come up when it’s Googled.

Mother Teresa’s take on peace became one of her most famous creations, offered to the Missionaries of Charity on January 31, 1980.

The fruit of silence is prayer,
The fruit of prayer is faith,
The fruit of faith is love,
The fruit of love is service,
The fruit of service is peace. 

To read the story of Mother Teresa is to stretch one’s understanding of what some call the radical character of the Christian life. What she valued is a package of behavior that cost both nothing and everything. You can’t buy love or faith; you can only give it away. In economic terms, it’s perfectly worthless; but, if you believe her – and St. Francis – life without those qualities is poverty, even madness.

MT’s patron saint hung out with wolves and spoke to indigo buntings – and probably bunnies too. He believed Christ was there in the minds and hearts and faces of lepers, of those without hope. He believed in peace.

So did she, the kind of peace that passes all understanding.

I wonder if she knew the words of the hymn we sang yesterday in church: “– in peace that only Thou canst give, / With thee, O Master, let me live.”

Whether she could hum the tune is questionable, but I have no doubt she knew the words.