Pray Like Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (feast day of Sept. 5) is synonymous with love and service.

No matter what one’s religious affiliation—or lack thereof—she is known as a sort of blueprint for the human person. She gave everything to serve the most vulnerable. And yet, her smile and joy reverberated around the world.

So many people recognize the blue and white habits that her congregation wears. She was a woman of intense sacrifice for God and for others. She had a way of looking at people that made them feel like they were the only person who mattered in the entire world.

If you are like me, you might ask: How can anyone ever be like that? How can you live so radically for God and for others as Mother Teresa did? What did she know about life that gave her the recipe to live in such a radically beautiful way?

While I am not even close to being a Mother Teresa, I do believe that the secret to living in a similar fashion to hers is found in the depths of her prayer life. Mother Teresa spent her entire day serving the poorest of the poor and those who were dying in Calcutta. The rest of her time was given to prayer and a few hours of sleep. Many great works have shown that it was the intimacy of Mother Teresa’s prayer that fueled her life.

Most notably, it was my encounter with a letter that she wrote to her community toward the end of her life that changed my view on prayer and holiness. It is called the Varanasi Letter, and it was written on March 25, 1993.

The entire letter is worth reading (I recite a portion of it each morning), but a constant theme is her pleading with her sisters that they must “meet Jesus as a real living person, not just an idea.”

In the beginning lines of her letter, she states that she is worried that her sisters “have never really met Jesus, one to one, you and him alone … we may spend time in chapel but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how he looks at you with love,” she wrote. In so many words, Mother Teresa was challenging her sisters to reflect on what they do when they pray. Now, these sisters had given up families and money and so many liberties to serve the poor–but, had they fallen in love with Jesus Christ? This was the concern of her letter.

Honestly, these words are tough for me to hear each day. If it is true that these sisters might not really know Jesus intimately, and they spend hours a day in prayer and service to the poor—then what does that mean for me?

These words truly personify the personality and wisdom of Mother Teresa. She was always willing to “go there” when talking with others and she was always consumed with preaching the personal love of Jesus. She had experienced the depths of Jesus’ love for her, and she knew that he desperately desires to share this with others. It was divine intimacy that was calling her sisters to experience, and it all begins with acknowledging Christ as a Person present with us in prayer.

Divine intimacy is not just for the saints. It is the bare minimum necessary in our relationship with Christ. If personal and intimate union with Jesus as a real living person is not a common experience for us, then we cannot settle for that. With more exclusivity comes more intimacy. Therefore, we must strive to be alone with the One who assures us that we are never alone.

To honor Mother Teresa and to accept her invitation to know Jesus “as a real living person,” make the commitment to pray differently this week. Place yourself at the feet of the God who simply wants you “to hear him speaking in the silence of your heart.” The God who desires for you to have, “a daily intimate contact with him.”

Accept the challenge to pray like Mother Teresa and focus on the personal aspect of prayer. Then await your marching orders for how to change the world like she did, one small action at a time.

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