Sunday, November 23, 2008

Interview with Sister Tarcicia, the 18th sister to join the Missionaries of Charity


I was a superior 14 times.
I was a superior in Delhi. We never knew when Mother was coming. Ladies would call mother and cry. Their husbands were not good to them....running after other girls. Mother would console them. Mother would feel sad... I’m coming on such a day.... We(sisters) used to feel sad. They needed mother more than us. We would go to the airport to pick her up. Mother would say "go home". She would sit in their (the wealthy ladies) cars. She would go to their places to console them. After short time she would come back to convent. She always came back to the convent.


One day mother gave us instruction....I am not neglecting you. The Holy Father said, "God has given you two kinds of love…give more love to outsiders...it is necessary to give first love to outsiders and only necessary love to sisters. "The first love you give to people," the Holy Father told mother. The people needed mother more than sisters. In Delhi she came to help the ladies.

Linda Schaefer's journeys with Mother Teresa

This is how I began my talk for Hospice of Tift in Georgia:

How do we discover compassion? Go provides many tools and circumstances, some of which we are prepared to confront, while others land at our doorstep with a bang. When a spouse, child, friend, mother, father or other relative is diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of cancer, how does one respond to this hard and cruel circumstance? Do we shake our fist at God? Do we take it out on our children or loved ones? Do we fight the big fight and take a position on some surreal battleground, grab the biggest sword we can find, stride our dragon and fly into the face of this huge ugly threat, swearing and cursing, damning the beast of cancer to hell?

So which position do we take? Are we going into battle, or do we choose to surrender to a circumstance that we ultimately have little control over, particularly over the outcome?

(email for rest of speech: please view www.motherteresaofcalcutta.com