If you can’t be like mother Teresa, be like Paula Mitchell
by Lori Fontana
I want to tell you about a very special person, though she may not appear special. She’s not rich or famous. You won’t read about her in the news. If you walked by her on the street, you probably wouldn’t notice her. Her hair is white; her step is slow; her hearing is failing; her hands are worn and sometimes she needs a hand to help open a jar.
But she is a beautiful woman; and she is a saint. “How so?” you might ask.
Well, I know that every day she is the hands and feet, the heart and voice of Jesus for the people with whom she lives. I follow her through the halls of her assisted living home and the adjoining nursing care home, through the dining hall, the chapel, and across the courtyard patio. Everywhere she goes, she greets each person she sees. She smiles and says each person’s name, reaching out to pat a hand, caress a shoulder. She inquires about a family member or what was served for lunch or an upcoming outing. She always introduces me, and as I greet her friends, she tells me an interesting fact or talent about each one.
The people she greets may be seated, bent over in a chair, laboriously pushing a walker, painstakingly guiding a wheelchair, or gallantly shuffling along. Always, they beam in response to her greeting, her inquiries, her gentle touch. There are some who grasp my arm to pull me closer and tell me how welcoming she is, how she helped when they first arrived, how she found a lost item for them, brought a meal to their room, refilled their teacup, showed such care for them.
This special lady is my mom, Paula. She’s an ordinary woman in ordinary circumstances. But she has made some simple yet profound choices to live her life in an extraordinary way—the way of sainthood. St. Therese of Lisieux extols the “Little Way” of loving and following Jesus. St. Teresa of Avila knew that most of us make our journey to God in modest, often obscure ways of simply loving God and neighbor. One of her well-known prayers illustrates our common call to sainthood along a humble path:
“Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.”
Our vocation as Christians calls each of us to be Christ for others, wherever we find ourselves, in the providence of our everyday lives. Interestingly, my mom told me that she has changed since she moved into assisted living. She has become more outgoing, more willing to speak up, speak out, and speak to others, even folks she does not know. She confided, “I was not like this for a big part of my life. I was quiet and shy,” she said. “Not anymore. I feel confident and emboldened to speak to others, to help others, who are, perhaps, going through a hard time. I know what they are feeling, and I want to help.”
As her daughter, I know she has lived as Christ’s eyes, hands, and feet throughout her life, as a mom for many, many years in the family home. A good friend of ours pointed out at his mom’s funeral that Jesus is describing his mom (and I would say, most mothers) in Matthew’s last judgment scene:
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” Matt 25:35-36
This tells the story of our mothers. They have fed us, clothed us, cared for us. Jesus’ call to us is to do the same for whomever is in our circle of life. Perhaps it’s our own children; our parents or siblings or other relatives. Perhaps we have a neighbor who is elderly or alone or struggling. Maybe it’s a co-worker, a teacher or student, the person in the car ahead of us or in the grocery check-out line behind us.
Indeed, we are all called to be saints. Probably, none of us will be as influential and well-known a saint as Mother Teresa. But I do believe that we can all be like Paula—acting as Jesus would, being his hands and feet and voice, for each person we meet.
