Good Read: Finding Calcutta, by Mary Poplin

I haven't finished this book yet, but it's good enough to recommend highly, after the first two-thirds. I read it on the plane on my way out to visit my elderly parents yesterday. It's written by a smart, honest woman who was raised Presbyterian, ran wild in the feminist movement for years, and then became Roman Catholic. A professor in education, she could never understand why Mother Teresa referred to her work in Calcutta as a spiritual ministry, rather than as a social work endeavor. So she flew to Calcutta (after her conversion to Christianity) and volunteered for several months in the Sisters of Mercy orphanage.

This book distills some of the essence of a life submitted completely to Jesus. Depending where you are in your life, it may mean nothing or it may be a profound agent for inner change. I am finding it the latter.

Just some excerpts to give you a taste:

On centrality of prayer:

I commented one day to one of the sisters who was scurrying from one task to the next at how hard she worked. She looked at me as though she had not ever thought of it that way. Then she said, "Oh, but our first work is prayer."

When most of us look at the Missionaries of Charity, we see their physical labor--cooking, scrubbing, feeding, cleaning, tending the poor, picking people up off the streets or visiting shut-ins. But few know that Mother Teresa and the Missionaries see their first work as prayer and the work with the poor as a natural outcome of that prayer. They intentionally stop to pray six times a day in addition to praying as they go to and from their destinations and work. Mother wrote that these are times during the day "when we can regain our strength and fill up our emptiness with Jesus."

On the vow of chastity:

The vow of chastity liberates us totally for the contemplation of God and the wholehearted and free service of the poorest of the poor. By it we cleave to Jesus with an undivided love so as to:

• live in him, for him, by him and with him as our sole guide,
• be invaded by his own holiness and filled with his own Spirit of love,
• show forth the luminous face of Jesus, radiant with purity and love for the Father and mankind,
• make reparation to God for all the sins of the flesh committed in the world today.

On social work versus Mother's ministry:

She believed the Missionaries were only able to do the work they do by the power, love and mercy of God. I came to understand why this must be true. Most social workers--like me in my early adult years--move in and out of private middle class lives to serve the poor, generally receiving payment for the work. By contarst, the Missionaries live the lives of the poor. their everyday routine is feeding, cleaning and tending the sick, the dying, and the poorest of the poor--with no salary. No arbitrary system of food stamps or special programs supplement their efforst. To me, the work would have soon become boring, physically grueling and even discouraging, but not for them. Mother Teresa said, "A Christian is a tabernacle of the living God." That is the way they saw their work--as him "dwelling in them."