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My Letter from Mother Teresa
by Tom O’Toole
Several years ago, during one of my (not often enough) quiet moments of prayer, I thought I heard the Lord tell me to “start writing again.” I initially tried to dismiss it as my imagination, for although I had some modest success (emphasis on “modest”) in Catholic freelance writing after college, thirteen years later the circumstances had changed dramatically. I was now married with four children, and between helping my hearing disabled wife raise the family and working a fifty-hour week (nights as well as weekends) retail job, finding time to write seemed impractical if not impossible. “Besides,” I reasoned, “Catholic magazines didn’t pay much,” and money was something we desperately needed. Still the notion gnawed at my soul and would not let go, so I started on this illogical path in (what my sensible friends insisted) a most irrational manner. I wrote to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, asking her to do an interview with me for a Catholic magazine.
As silly as my request may seem, I figured if anyone would understand and help me with my unusual Christian quest, it was Mother Teresa. At age 35, my return to writing was really a call within a call, similar to one Mother Teresa had received at a like age when she, while retaining her vocation as a nun, went from being a comfortable high school teacher/principal to a possession-less servant of the sick, and eventually founded the Missionaries of Charity. Certainly, my role of husband and father would not change, but (if this call was true), my service to the Lord would become more immediate, more intimate. And of course, if she did agree to an interview, you could not ask for a better first subject!
Well, to make a long story short, “The Saint of the Gutters” did answer my letter, but not in the way I had first hoped. I never did speak with Mother Teresa for a personal interview. In fact, her reply letter talked more about my “first” vocation, as husband and father (“God love you for all the love you give and the joy you share with your beautiful family and with all you come in contact with,” her note stated, adding “I am praying much for you all”) than my second vocation as writer. As to my wondering about whether to pursue a career as a freelancer, she simply stated, “I think you have answered your questions very well.” However, if I had any further inquiries about “the Church’s standpoint” on matters which I wished to write about, I was not to contact her, but to “read Father J. Hardon’s books,” something The Catholic Faith subscribers already know about.
And so, whether it was due to Mother Teresa’s prayers or her confidence in my gifts, shortly after receiving her letter, Catholic personalities began to grant me interviews, and these interviews started getting published. Not only that, my wife Jeanette (who received a Miraculous Medal from Mother) began to see improvement with her illness (Meniere’s Syndrome). So although we were both saddened by Mother’s recent death, the prayer in her letter now challenges us all the more. Mother wrote, “Tell your wife to pray often during the day, ‘Mary, Mother of Jesus, be a mother to me now, make me better.’” Although I cannot be sure whether or not Mother Teresa meant “make me better” as a spiritual double entendre, her invitation to my wife to join the sick and suffering co-workers of the Missionaries of Charity made it clear that while Jeanette can always pray for the healing of her inner ear, we must also pray that if God does not heal us, we can still rejoice in our sufferings, for in our flesh we can fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His Body the Church (Col 1:24). Similarly, Mother Teresa wants me and the rest of Christ’s healthy servants to pray to Mary to become better at our vocations, both religious and secular.
Certainly, deprived of the living witness to Christ Mother Teresa provided, heroic virtue seems even more difficult now — if not impractical or impossible. This is why we must also remember that Mother Teresa said, “I am praying much for you all,” and that as she stands even closer to Mary, the greatest saint and the Mother of us all, we can be confident that her prayers for us continue more powerful than ever. Of course, when questions do arise, The Catholic Faith still has “Fr. J. Hardon,” a fact we can all be thankful for. As for myself, I am doubly in Mother Teresa’s debt, for she not only led me to read Father Hardon’s writings, but has inspired me to write for his favorite magazine as well.
Tom O’Toole is a freelance writer from Elmhurst, Illinois.