Antoninus,
This is one of my fondest anecdotes about Mother Teresa. It explains many things that you are hearing on this board from certain quarters.
Mother Teresa was visited by a very prominent prelate. The Monsignor came to watch her nuns feed the poor and dying and to care for them in their final hours. He was deeply moved. He blessed the foundress of the Missionaries of Charity and those nuns there, and went off to catch his train.
He had gotten only several hundred yards from the Mission in Calcutta when he found an elderly man covered with sores and dying in the gutter. He grew very upset and then became extremely angry. He hurried back to Mother Teresa and accosted her. "Mother," he said, "there is a man dying in the street not more than 300 yards from here! Why didn't your nuns find this man and bring him here for care and treatment? He is dying!"
The tiny nun finished cleaning a poor soul about to die, and then looked up at the irritated priest. "Monsignor," she said, "the Sisters and I look after all the souls that God chooses to put into our path. These are those you see here. This dying man you speak of was placed in YOUR path. God has made him your responsibility!"
In a nutshell, this is what you are experiencing here.
In my younger days, I had occasion to see an occasional poor soul covered with maggots who lost limbs or worse for lack of simple hygiene and care. How many who are second guessing this good nun, including Hitchens, have ignored such poor souls and walked on? Mother Teresa didn't.
Frank
Excellent! Thank you for that post .. I had not read this one. Very reminiscent of all the antagonism tossed at Mother Angelica and the EWTN network she founded. The 'princes' would come, take a tour and depart, commending her on her good works, when she actually needed money to get the network up and running.
One day, Mother called in the janitor and asked him to take stakes, string and rags outside. She then asked him to stake off a certain plot of land by planting the stakes, stringing the rope and hanging the white rags. The next day a visiting Cardinal asked her what it represented. She commented that this was "a reminder" to God that she needed a studio. He returned to his diocese and several weeks later a generous check arrived in the mail from an anonymous donor.
We are all part of the same community. May we continue to rebuild it on the strength of our faith in Christ, our Lord.