The Beatitudes of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 5: 1-12), which we hear read on this Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year A, after we heard last week of the call of the first disciples, are referred to as a summary of the Gospel. They are said to summarize the way in which the disciples of Jesus are to live and follow the example of His life in the world today.

I think for many of us, when we hear the Beatitudes, or read them ourselves, there are three questions that can come to mind. These are: 1) What would it look like if someone was to live this way? 2) Why should anyone try to live this way? and 3) How can a person in the world today live this way?

Last weekend, following the Sunday Masses, I went to see a movie that offered a very powerful response to all of these questions. The movie was entitled “No Greater Love.” This movie is a documentary about the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta that was produced in the United States by the Knights of Columbus. The movie beautifully depicts the way in which Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta served Christ in the poorest of the poor and followed almost literally the teaching of the Beatitudes, while instructing her Sisters in the Missionaries of Charity to do the same by the way they lived and served the poor around the world. Mother Teresa’s life was a witness to the way in which the Beatitudes invite Christians to turn the values of the world upside down by seeing in each person, especially the poorest of the poor, Christ Himself.

Mother Teresa took her own religious name from another Saint Theresa in the Church, who was very famous at the time that Mother Teresa was beginning her own work establishing her community. Saint Theresa of Lisieux was a Carmelite nun who always wanted to be a missionary. Her poor health made that impossible and she lived her religious life as a contemplative nun who wrote of the importance of loving Christ in our neighbour and in those whom we often find difficult to deal with in our daily lives. Theresa of Lisieux spoke of the simple way of love in the ordinary events of our lives as a way of responding to Christ. Because Jesus had done so much to love us, and continued to give Himself to us in the gift of the Eucharist, Christians ought to try to love others as Christ had loved us. Because we are all made in the image and likeness of God, we ought to see Christ in everyone and love Him in these ordinary encounters. For articulating this very real and concrete way of living the Gospel, Saint Theresa of Lisieux was declared a Doctor of the Church.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta was discerning her own response to God’s love for her in the 1920’s and 30’s, when Saint Theresa of Lisieux was canonized and held as a much loved figure in the life of the Church. I have often mentioned that as our own parish church was built in the 1920’s, when Theresa of Lisieux was canonized, we are blessed to have a relic of her in our altar. In the same way that Theresa of Lisieux had desired to be a missionary, Mother Teresa of Calcutta had the same desire. She was a Loretta Sister who had done her formation in Ireland. Sent to work as a teacher in India, as she encountered the many poor in the streets of India, she desired to serve Christ in them and to work among the poorest of the poor. She believed with profound conviction that Christians were called to see Christ in all of their brothers and sisters, and that her witness of seeing Christ in the poorest of the poor, would remind all Christians that they were to see Christ in the least and the vulnerable.

As she believed that every person was to be served as though he or she was Christ Himself, Mother Teresa sent her sisters to minister to the poor and dying. She was adamantly prolife and believed that life should be cared for and defended at all stages. This belief called her to care for those who were dying of decease, to care for handicapped and incapacitated people, and to go into the most dangerous areas to serve the poorest of the poor. She and her sisters would go into neighbourhoods that were divided by war and gang-fighting. They would visit prisons, care for drug addicts abandoned by society, and reach out to AIDS victims at a time when everyone else was terrified of this disease. When in the presence of any human being, she said that she and her sisters were called to act as though this person was Christ Himself. In fact, if we were to ask what it would look like if each person were to live the Beatitudes, it could be described as Mother Teresa’s Gospel on five fingers, quoting Matthew 25: 40—“YOU- DID- IT- TO- ME.” Or more completely: ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” To the men and women living in the comfortable First World, Mother Teresa gave the call to care for the lonely and isolated who often face a different and deeper form of poverty in their loneliness. An example of what a life lived according to the Beatitudes would look like can be seen in the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

In this movie, “No Greater Love,” Mother Teresa also gives the answer to the question, “Why Christians ought to live this way?” Her answer is very simple: It is because that is how Christ loved us. Jesus, who was with the Father when the world was created, came down from Heaven and saved us and gave His life for each of us. Mother Teresa, and all of her communities ,have a great love for Christ in the Eucharist and hold adoration and prayer as the foundation of their ministry. They receive the Eucharist profoundly aware that in it Christ comes to us in His Body and Blood to be with us in our joys, trials and tribulations. Because Christ comes to be with us in our lives, Mother Teresa believed that each Christian is sent to be Christ for others and was called to see Christ present in each person. The reason that the Christian is called to such a generous love for others is that is how Christ has loved us. There is “No Greater Love,” than the love that Christ has for us. In response to that love, we are called to love others. Because we have been loved so much by God, we too are called to love others as He has loved us. Part of the responsibility that is given to each Christian is to understand how much we are loved by God, so that this might motivate us to love others in response to God’s love for us. Mother Teresa believed that the Eucharist and the scriptures were essential foundations for an understanding of that love.

The documentary “No Greater Love,” also gives many examples about the way a number of individuals had their own lives changed by the love that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity showed them. There are testimonies from drug addicts, prisoners, single mothers and many others about the radical change that occurred in their lives when another human being reached out to their humanity and recognized their dignity as someone else made in the image and likeness of God. These persons then went on to work with the Missionaries of Charity and to do for others as had been done unto them. As a result of her efforts to love others as Christ had loved her, Mother Teresa was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1979 and as she accepted the award challenged all world leaders to protect life at all stages, since Christ was to be encountered in each human being.

Mother Teresa also answered the third question of how do we do this today by stating that “Holiness is not a luxury for the few; it is not just for a few people. It is meant for you and for me and for all of us. It is a simple duty, because if we learn to love, we learn to be holy.” Her answer to this question challenges each person to love those whom they encounter as though that person was Christ. The Christian is called in the family, the work-place, school and on whatever adventure they are engaged in to see each person as Christ. At first this may seem very overwhelming. However, Mother Teresa also believed in the power of small gestures to transform families, work-places and schools. She said that Christians are to be filled with HOPE. It is the knowledge that Christ has loved us, and is with us, that is to be the source of our HOPE. We can be overwhelmed by the idea that we have to change the world. However, the very practical efforts of striving to see Christ in the present in the person before us can give us the hope and ability to live the call to holiness each day. Each day, we are to encounter the Lord in gratitude and prayer, so that we can understand what He has done for us, and this can inspire us to transform our lives by small and practical efforts to see Christ in others and love them as He has loved us. The way in which we are to love as the Beatitudes invite us to is one encounter at a time; believing that the same Christ who has loved us with “No Greater Love” than any other person can or will, is standing before us in the person whom we are encountering in the present moment.

Last Sunday, we heard the call of the first disciples in Matthew’s Gospel. This Sunday, in the Beatitudes we hear how we as disciples are called to live. The Beatitudes are a summary of the Christian way of life. This life is based on a belief that Christ has shown each of us the greatest love that we will ever know by saving and redeeming each of us. It is because of the fact that there is “No Greater Love” than that which Christ has shown us, that we are called to love our neighbour as self. Mother Teresa’s Gospel on five fingers gives us the best Gospel summary that we can bring to any situation, as Christ reminds us ”YOU- DID-IT-TO-ME” each time we encounter Him in our brother or sister in need.

May we all pray for the grace to be holy, by loving Christ in our neighbour; one encounter at a time. Since this is a great challenge for me, please pray for me and know that I pray for you.

Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor, St. Peter’s Church—Toronto, Ontario

This reflection based on the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time—Year A: Zephaniah 2:3; 3: 12-13; Psalm 146; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; and Matthew 5: 1-12.

P.S. Pope Francis has written a beautiful apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness, which all Christians are called to live through living the Beatitudes. Entitled, Gaudete et Exsultate, Sister Gabriel will be giving a reflection on this letter on Monday, February 20, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. as an immediate preparation for Lent.