This week’s assembly thene is ‘Noticing a Need’ so I chose to talk about Mother Teresa of Calcutta: she noticed, when her Order had sent her to Calcutta, how many people (including children) were living and dying on the streets. The street people were hungry, cold, often sick, sometimes dying – and, of course, homeless.
Mother Teresa did what she could by clothing and feeding people and caring for the dying. Over time she gained many helpers across the world, and one of these was my Grandmother, Bertha Harris, who became a Co-Worker of Mother Teresa. My Grandma used a particular skill to help: she was a brillaint knitter, and she knitted over 4000 vests for Mother Teresa’s street children. Here is a good example of someone who used a talent in a positive way to meet a need. The vests came in all colours except white (which is the colour of death in Calcutta as black is in the UK).
Mother Teresa came to England in 1996 and my Grandma had a chance to meet her: here is a photo – my Grandma is the one shaking Mother Teresa’s hand.
Mother Teresa was not perfect and she knew she couldn’t do everything. But she did what she felt called to do, and she did it well. After she died it became clear that she suffered doubt about her faith and worked for many years with no sense of God’s presence. To me, this makes her more of a saint, not less. A brave and dtermined woman who made the lives of thousands of children and adults a little better, and gave them love.