By Victoria Fassett
Campus Minister
UNL Newman Center
Throughout her life, Mother Teresa – now St. Teresa of Calcutta – would talk about the five-word gospel: “You did it to me.”
This is taken from the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Talking about it, Mother Teresa would hold up one hand and count off each word on her fingers. For her, it was so clear and simple what the Lord was asking: “Teresa, will you feed me? Teresa, will you hold me? Teresa, will you clothe me? Teresa, will you bathe me? Teresa, will you see me?”
Over and over she pursued the heart of the Lord in the eyes of the dying and the diseased. Again and again she bathed His wounds on the bodies of those who could not help themselves.
While there are many moving stories from Mother’s life, there is one that has always stuck with me. A reporter came to interview her, and when he arrived, he was taken to see her while she prayed her holy hour. When he approached her, she looked up and conversed with him, making plans for what their day would look like, and then returned to her conversation with Jesus.
The reporter said it was as though she had simply gone from talking to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to talking to Jesus within him, and back again. From those many hours with the Lord in the Eucharist, she had learned to see Him everywhere – in those who were most in need, to those who seemed to have everything, and everyone in between. In each person, she found her Lord and her Spouse.
Mother Teresa knew that the five-word gospel required two things: first, intimacy with the Lord through intentional prayer, and second, meeting and serving and loving Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor. This week is spring break at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and 56 students are stepping into this five-word gospel.
Twenty-five students, through the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture at UNL, are in Rome on pilgrimage to spend time with the Lord in the place where he allowed His Church to be established. The beauty of pilgrimage is that it gives space for our hearts to contemplate beauty, to embrace the suffering of inconvenience and the lack of control over schedules, and to rest in simply receiving what Jesus wants to place in our hands. Our hearts long for intimacy with Jesus, and this time away, in a beautiful place, learning about the saints we venerate and finding the Lord in new surroundings, is truly a gift.
While that group is in Rome, 31 students and five FOCUS missionaries are in Mexico City with pastor Father Robert Matya, on a FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) mission trip that will serve with Craig Johring and Hope of the Poor. They are alongside Johring, in the work he’s done for many years, to enter into the lives of those who feel like they have no hope, and show them the light of the gospel.
These students are also entering into intimacy with our Lord as they see him suffering in those who have nothing, and as they encounter His joy in those who know that poverty of spirit is the fastest and most sure way to the Kingdom of Heaven. In her many years of desolation and darkness, this is the place Mother Teresa most often found Jesus – in the eyes of those who were closest to Christ in their suffering.
Please keep our students in your prayers, and ask that the time they’ve given to encounter Jesus in a new way this week will allow their hearts to seek Him every day in their ordinary lives when they return.
