By Father Joseph Chan Wing-chiu
I remember meeting St. Teresa of Calcutta during my seminary years, when I followed the spiritual advisor of the seminary, Father Lawrence Yiu Shun-kit, to the former office of the Catholic Institute for Religion and Society at the Maryknoll Convent School. Two to three hundred people were waiting for the sister, looking forward to the honour of seeing her holy face and grace, and to be taught by her loving heart. I was fortunate to receive a message of advice and encouragement from her on that occasion. Later, I also had the opportunity to meet the sister at the Diocese Centre, and although I don’t think she remembered much about me, she still gave me a warm handshake with a kind and accepting smile.
The saints chosen by God are among us. Later on, I learnt from the sharing of Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming that since the establishment of the Missionaries of Charity in Hong Kong, St. Teresa had been coming to Hong Kong almost once a year to visit her fellow sisters and to assist in the development of the service of love. I was so excited and thankful for this. A contemporary saint was always present among us. Everyone who met the sister could feel the warmth of love in her. What she presented was precisely the invitation of Jesus Christ to her—an invitation to care for the poor and the weak with love, so that they too can experience God’s love.
You may not have met St. Teresa, but every time you meet one of the Missionaries of Charity sisters, wearing the same habit, you will find that her spirit still exists in their community. Their warm and affectionate handshake, their acceptance, is no different from that of St. Teresa.
Jesus Christ teaches us through specific instructions to serve the least of our brothers and sisters so as to serve him. We can learn from the sisters to see the people we serve and meet from this perspective, especially those who are hungry, barely clothed, poor widows, the weak, the lonely, the sick and the imprisoned. Two thousand years ago, Jesus’ beloved disciple John, also deeply rooted in the teachings of Jesus, found in the practical and concrete life of faith that Jesus’ teachings were meant to show them the truth of what they knew, which was that “God is love”.
Where we live in love and show this love, God is in us and we are in him. This is the proof that we Christians are to meet Jesus and live together. Not only saints, consecrated people or clergy, but also every believer can live the face of God through a life of love and virtue. May each and every one of us Christians show God’s love in our own lives, so that more people may know that God is love and God is their Father. God is among us.
