The Mother Teresa Factor
By G.G. Vandagriff

I once saw a film of Mother Teresa treating the poor in Calcutta, forcing them to eat some sort of gruel, holding their heads in her lap as they died, making their last moments on earth full of love. It was not pretty. It was not uplifting. I left the theater with my head in a whirl of conflicting emotions.

I was depressed at the time, and I think my primary emotion was one of guilt. I could never walk among Mother Teresa’s poor, never mind ministering to them. The enormity of what she was trying to do overwhelmed me. She was dedicating her life and every scrap of energy she had in service, yet even she was only able to touch a handful of the people that suffer from poverty, hunger, and disease in this life.

How could anyone make a difference, a real and lasting difference? The suffering of so many people in the world descended on me like a dark mantle.

There was the Middle East with all its poverty and strife. There were the victims of the Tsunami,
Katrina, and Rita. There was crime with its attendant drug abuse and mental illness that plagued our own cities.

Enlightenment

Then I began to study the atonement and the Savior’s life with deeper intent. The Savior’s ministry was very brief. Though He wore himself out in a ministry where he healed and taught from dawn until after dark scarcely sleeping, during his lifetime he could help only a few.

Was his life a failure? No, because what he was really doing was bringing living water to the thirsty of the universe. His real mission was to atone for all suffering and sin for those who would hear of him down through the centuries and take upon themselves his name.

His brief ministry was only an example to us of how to serve. He expects us to be his hands now, multiplying the good he did in his life by the number of believers in his name. His healing, if we study it, was intense and personal. It was not a casual thing.

When we meet him, when He stands before the Father as our advocate, it will be highly personal. He knows each of us — our suffering, our sins, because he atoned for them individually. If his name is written on our hearts, if we are His, he can say, “This one is mine. For my sake, Father, please forgive him. I have already atoned for his sins.”

The Starting Point

The Savior’s power and Mother Teresa’s mission are similar, and therefore we can learn from both of them how to serve. We can make a difference one person at a time.

Mother Teresa was famous for giving the person she was talking to at a given moment her full attention. “I believe,” she said, “in person-to-person contact. Every person is Christ for me and since there is only one Jesus,” she reasoned, “the person I am meeting is the one person in the world at that moment.” She believed that starting with individuals would add up to a much different world.

In the 1980’s, the population of Calcutta was between six and eight million, of which more than 2000,000 lived on the street. Sometimes, Mother Teresa had to answer the charge that she and the Sisters were responding to only a tiny fraction of the need. She replied: “I do not add up, I only subtract from the total number of poor or dying ... “ Her most famous response to the question of her effectiveness cam in reply to a U.S. senator: “God had not called me to be successful. God has called me to be faithful.”

Mother Teresa ... and the Sisters ... were not paralyzed by the thought of what they could not do. In the same way, there is no need to feel overwhelmed by the weight of the world’s problems. Simply ask yourself, “Is there one person I can help in some small way today?” (“Mother Teresa: Responding to Suffering — In and Around Us,” Caring Mentors #20952, Abbey Press)

“By Their Fruits, Ye Shall Know Them”

We can bring peace to the world one heart at a time. That doesn’t seem like much, but the cumulative efforts of all the Saints in the world can be mighty. Many people worry about the hatred towards those of our faith in the world today. A highly respected Catholic columnist Michael Novak wrote the following:

The attacks upon Romney's religion have been a last straw. They are just not fair. I remember his father's campaigns and what an upright man he was — and no one even breathed a word against him because of his religion.

In addition, every one of the Mormons I have ever worked with, beginning with a great graduate assistant for one of my classes at Stanford in about 1967, have been the most well-mannered, inquisitive, competent, kind and thoughtful people I know. Arch Madsen of Bonneville Broadcasting, with whom I served on the Board of International Broadcast for many years, Joe Cannon who was on the AEI Board, Senator Orrin Hatch, and a long list of others always lifted my spirits.

One of my favorite texts from the New Testament is, "By their fruits you shall know them." That verse has taught me to look for persons who actually love God, not so much by the churches they attend or what they say they believe, but by how they and their families live their lives. Over two public generations now, the Romney family has given us examples of upright, decent, warm lives, given to public commitment even though they did not have to be.

These days, though, it has become imperative for some Christians to come out publicly for Mitt, now that his religion has come under unfair attack. I am no expert on Mormon theology, but I do profoundly admire the good family life and good individuals it keeps sending forth into the world. Those are signs I read clearly. (“Why I Decided to Support Mitt Romney”, Michael Novak, The Corner, National Review Online, December 12, 2007.)

Hurricane Rita and Other Disasters

Recently, I was asked to speak to the Beaumont Texas Stake on the healing power of the atonement when dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The city had been square in the path of Hurricane Rita two years ago, and the women were having difficult times with depression and other effects of PTSD.

At one point, the public relations director asked if I would mind speaking to the media. Knowing I would be right in the center of the Bible Belt, the idea made me somewhat nervous.

Would I be attacked? I wasn’t sure I could handle that. But I was reassured by the wife of the stake president:

Since Hurricane Rita, the Church has a tremendously good reputation around here because of all the assistance that was given to everyone. My husband was part of the first response and was present and effective at all the meetings they had with FEMA and other agencies that were offering help. No one helped more than our church, and people know that.

Persecution of members of our faith will ever be present, because the adversary wants to destroy us. But by taking upon us the name of Christ, using the enabling power of the atonement to become more than we could be on our own, we can change the world one heart at a time on the only level that matters.