Mother Teresa in the Slums

Light in the Slums

“You are the Light of the world… Let your Light shine before others. So that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Mt.5: 14-16)

‘The Slums of Kolkata’, creates a very dark and gloomy picture in our minds. It presents the picture of dirt, filth and inhabitants of beggars, street children and destitute. It creates a feeling of abomination and neglect. But it amazes all ears and eyes that a Lady could devote her life for such people of deplorable and pitiful condition. ‘I walk amidst the dark streets of the Slums with the light of Christ’; Mother Teresa said when she first steeped into the Slums. It is with the same Light that she admirably cut across the barriers of caste and creed, colour and culture, ideologies and economic status to reach out to one and all especially the poor and the destitute with a heart full of God-like Love and compassion. She illumined with the Light of Christ the lives of the poor and destitute in the slums. She became the hope for the hopeless. She illumined to the dark future of the slum dwellers. She became sympathy during the pathetic condition of the destitute. She produced before them the effects of Light – Joy, Hope and Peace. 

Mother Teresa shone as the Light of Christ not only in the slums of Kolkotta but to the poor and destitute of the whole world. The Light she bore has worldwide effect. It dispelled the darkness of the slums in the whole world. Thus today she is loved and admired by the world but worshiped by the destitute who received her love, concern and acceptance. She cared for the uncared, welcomed the unwelcome, accepted the unacceptable, loved the unloved and took to her loving bosom the abandoned and the unwanted. She stills shines as the Light of Christ to the world.

Mother Teresa was so inflamed with the love of God, so attuned to the will of God, that she was able to radiate the glow and warmth of that love all around. Her motherly touch had a healing effect, her kind words soothed people’s feelings and her compassionate look and beaming face dispelled the gloom of grief and pain. What about you and me? As missionaries are we going to bear the Light of Christ to the world? Do we possess the Light? May beatified saint Mother Teresa inspire each one of us by her holy and exemplary life to be a Light to the poorest of the poor.