By Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB
The B.C. Catholic

This is an excerpt from a homily given at St. Paul's Parish Sept. 5.

What a blessing to be here at St. Paul's on Cordova Street to be celebrating the feast of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata.

This is an especially significant and joyful occasion, for it marks the beginning of a new page in the history of the Church's presence in the Downtown Eastside.

For 85 years, as you know, the religious presence here was guaranteed by the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, to whom the archdiocese, and the community, owe an enormous debt of gratitude.

Unfortunately their lack of vocations forced them to withdraw from Vancouver, a very painful decision for them and for us. They touched thousands of lives, ensuring that the love of Christ was ever present.

Now the Missionaries of Charity, who established their first convent here after the historic visit of Mother Teresa to Vancouver in 1988, are moving to a new home, the former convent of the Franciscan Sisters.

The Church is a community of continuity, and the archdiocese is delighted that the Missionaries of Charity agreed to continue and ensure a visible presence of consecrated women in this section of the city. Thank you, sisters, for moving here.

If I dare say, I can well imagine that Mother is looking down approvingly at your decision to be in closer physical proximity to the "poorest of the poor" here in the DTES.

To celebrate her feast day with this change in location is a great grace for all of us.

Like your foundress, you devote your energies first of all to prayer, prayer that is rooted in faith. For Blessed Teresa, everything begins in prayer, for it is through prayer that we learn to look contemplatively at the world and to discern there, behind its enormous tribulations, the living presence of Jesus.

That is your greatest gift to the Church and the community. "We are not social workers," Mother used to say, but "we are first and foremost contemplatives."

And this contemplation, she taught us, starts from the Eucharist. It is because He is really present in the Blessed Sacrament that we can really touch Him in our brothers and sisters.

Mother Teresa saw an intimate, indissoluble link between these two forms of the presence of Christ in our world - in the Eucharist and in the "least of the little ones."

In fact, she constantly held up as a model to her sisters the way in which the priest touches the Body of Christ at Mass: "this is how you should handle the same Body of Christ in the suffering bodies of men."

While it's impossible to sum the secret of Mother's spirituality, one lesson she can teach us comes straight from the Beatitudes, when Jesus on the mountain proclaims "happy" or "blessed" those who are poor in spirit, pure in heart, gentle and merciful; and those who mourn and who hunger and thirst for what is right, who are peacemakers. If living the Beatitudes is our program for life, in imitation of Jesus, then those who follow His way are indeed "happy."

In our day many of our contemporaries think and act as if God did not exist. They live without the light. Indeed, "The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility."

We disciples, on the other hand, must live and demonstrate to others that faith is a personal decision which involves our whole life: how we think, how we worship, how we respect the inherent dignity of everyone by loosing the bonds of injustice, undoing the yoke, letting the oppressed go free, sharing our bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless into our dwellings, covering the naked.

Blessed Teresa of Kolkata remains a shining example and sign full of fascination for our time of how a life founded on joy, the love of Jesus, and profound faith even in suffering can give light to the world, that light which is Christ Himself.