6th
Praying in the Face of Suffering
I first visited Calcutta in 1993. I came to volunteer with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
The volunteers get started pretty early. Mass is at 6:30 followed by a breakfast of toast and a banana with a cup of chai. Following breakfast everyone jumps on buses or the subway, making their way to the various homes to begin the first shift for the volunteers which starts at 8:00 AM.
In the evening the volunteers are invited to join the Missionaries of Charity again for prayers (actually there are a number of times throughout the day when the sisters pray, but the mass and adoration are open to guests).
during my first few years of visiting Calcutta I actually spent time with Mother Teresa on several occasions—probably 12-15 encounters either one-on-one or introducing a group of friends asking her to share a reflection with us.
What I didn’t know to appreciate then was that whenever she was in town, Mother Teresa would be sitting on the floor at the back of the room every morning for mass and every evening for adoration. I must have gone to mass or prayers more than 50 times with Mother Teresa present. I was just a kid then. Totally unaware of the privilege of the presence of one of the most influential persons in the world among us during those times of reflection. Praying with Mother Teresa… it was crazy.
But what struck me more than the presence of a saint during the mass and other times of prayer was the actual space itself. The chapel is simple and austere. Nothing memorable about it. Non-descript in almost every way. It’s located on the 2nd floor of the convent (affectionately referred to as the “Mother House”) where Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity live. At the front of the room are quite a few windows that remain open to the noise of Lower Circular Road. Blaring horns from taxis and trucks, buses without mufflers revving their dying engines, the restless sounds of people and crowds, the howls and barking of street dogs, and the piercing cackling of crows. You could hardly hear the mass even with the microphone that was amplifying it.
Whenever I’d bring a group of friends to Calcutta I’d make sure their very first stop in the city was Mother Teresa’s home. Now the resting place where her tomb is located. We’d sit in prayer either in the chapel or around her tomb in silence and reflection.
After making another stop or two, I’d bring the group to the large Assemblies of God church on Park Street. The church is a sight to behold. Made of marble and protected by an 8-foot iron gate, we were often lucky enough to convince the security guard that we were Christians visiting the city and would like to visit the sanctuary for a time of prayer and reflection. We’d usually get accosted a few times as we’d make our way from the street to the auditorium, hassled by church staff wondering what we wanted, but finally, in an air-conditioned and carpeted place of worship (complete with state of the art Bose speakers), it wouldn’t take long to feel “at home.”
I like to compare and contrast the big marble evangelical church with the small and simple place where Mother Teresa used to pray.
Rather than turning down the intrusive sounds of the world, Mother faced it in her times of prayers. Calcutta in all of its blaring assault, was the sound-track, the background noise, to her contemplative exploration of God’s heart.
It’s sort of confusing to me that in my faith tradition we’ve gotten so far from the reality and the needs of the world. That in my religious up-brining we protected ourselves from the grace of interuptibility. That the churches I’ve gone to seem to worship in sound-proof spaces that rarely allow for the voices of the so-called voiceless to guide how we seek and discover God.
Oh yeah, and the AOG sponsored phone-booth-sized (literally, hardly big enough for 2 people to stand inside) feeding distribution center across the street from that big marble church also throws me. And I’m sure the 100+ people who wait in line for a bowl or rice and dahl as they gaze upon our insulated and isolated place of worship—protecting Jesus from the riff-raff.
