Mother Teresa's Secret Fire. Joseph Langford
I had recently arrived in Rome to begin theological studies and, booklover that I am, found my way, almost immediately off the plane, to one of the large bookstores near St. Peter’s Square. While browsing in the upstairs English section, my gaze fell on the cover of one particular book. Suddenly, my attention, and my whole being it seemed, was seized by the image looking back at me from this book. There, on the cover of this small paperback was the face of Mother Teresa — though at the time I had no idea who it was. Her countenance seemed somehow alive and engaging, almost three-dimensional. There was a goodness in her face, a kindness in her gaze, something appealing and deeply soul-soothing that was tugging at deep places in my spirit, places rarely touched. I felt as if she were looking through me, drawing me; and I found that I could not, I did not want to, resist.
Still shaken by what had taken place — more like a meeting with a living person than having stumbled across a book — I picked up the tiny volume, noticed its title (Something Beautiful for God, by Malcolm Muggeridge), paid for it, and made my way outside. I sat down at the bus stop, lost in thought, drinking in the goodness radiating from her countenance, reflected in page after page of photos depicting her work in the slums of Calcutta.
Who was this woman? How had she managed, in an instant, to touch the deepest part of me? How had she suddenly brought me to the end of a lifelong search, when I wasn’t even aware that I was searching? How had her photo on the cover of a book brought me face-to-face with divinity, and stirred up in me a new hope in what was best in mankind, and in myself? If it took the rest of my life, I was determined to find out.
Such was my first encounter, mediated by a book, with the woman who had already changed so many lives, and was about to change my own.
Journey of Discovery
That first vicarious encounter launched me on a personal quest: I was determined to discover what it was that I had seen in her — and more, to learn what had made her who she was. How had Mother Teresa become Mother Teresa? My hope was that the goodness I saw in her might somehow be reproduced, in myself and others. I reasoned that if her secret was understood, those who admired her around the world might have a better chance of emulating her.
But to begin my quest I needed direction. I needed a starting point.
I began by approaching the Sisters and Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity stationed there in Rome. From them I learned that the key to understanding Mother Teresa lay in the two simple words she placed on the wall of her chapels around the world — Jesus’ words from the cross: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28).
In each of her chapels I had visited in Rome, or seen in books depicting her work, there were always those same words written large beneath the cross. Carved in wood, painted on plaster, or cut from paper, the same mysterious words spoke silently of some great truth that had apparently been Mother Teresa’s anchor and inspiration.
At the time, none of the biographies of Mother Teresa ventured to guess where, when, or why these words had entered her soul with such force; why she continued to place them so prominently for all to see; or what exactly they represented for her. While no one disputed their importance, their meaning in Mother Teresa’s spirituality was not clear, even to the authors who lauded her most. Were these words part of some longstanding devotion? Did they come out of her early religious upbringing, or her training in Loreto? Or did they represent some personal, even mystical experience — since she was obviously a woman of deep prayer. Could it be that, unbeknown to all, she was not only a missionary but also a mystic?
I had already learned, both from reading and from the Sisters in Rome, that the inspiration for Mother Teresa’s work with the poor had come from an extraordinary grace she received on a train ride to Darjeeling in 1946. But she explained that as simply God’s call to leave her convent and to work in the slums — with no mention, no reference to the words she had placed on the wall, “I thirst.” I began to wonder if more had happened that day on the train than she was letting on. At least it represented a place to begin my search.
As I started to ask questions about her grace of the train, I was told that Mother Teresa spoke of it very little and very reluctantly. Many years later, she would confide that she considered her experience of September 10 so intimate, and her own person of so little importance, that she preferred to talk around the subject rather than about it. Among the Missionaries of Charity, it was understood that the one thing you could not ask Mother Teresa was about the grace of the train. She would deflect the question, and speak only of a divine “command” to go into the slums to serve the poor. While true, this was but half the story, hiding under a mantle of silence the magnitude of what had transpired in her soul.
With few exceptions, her silence continued unabated throughout her early years. She was content to allow her wordless love for the poor, together with the silent words of Jesus placed on the chapel wall, to speak for her. Her most revealing comments would come only later, as the time of her passing drew near.
And so I found my first attempts to know Mother Teresa more deeply being thwarted by mystery, and this became both a challenge and a blessing. At the time, only two things were clear. First, that “something” extraordinary had happened on the train to Darjeeling, something that had changed her life. Second, that once she had left the convent and was free to do so, she placed the words “I thirst” next to the crucifix in Mother House. But there was still a veil of secrecy over what actually had happened on the train, and over the enigmatic origin of these words on the chapel wall.
As my association with Mother Teresa grew over the ensuing years, however, I was given the opportunity to delve more deeply into her letters and conferences, and was able to begin an ongoing conversation with her that would eventually reward my search, even beyond my hopes.
A Second Quest
During my studies in Rome, I had begun to volunteer at the homeless shelter run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters near the Colosseum. During those years, and later after ordination, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend time with Mother Teresa during her frequent stops in Rome on her way from Calcutta to her various missions around the world. While I continued my quest to understand her inner fire, another quest was growing within me, even more unexpected than the first.
On one of her many visits to Rome (Ferdinando Scianna/Magnum Photos)
That first day in the bookstore, as I held Something Beautiful for God, I knew in my heart that I not only wanted to know all I could about Mother Teresa, but I also wanted to somehow dedicate my life to her work. While my first quest had proved difficult, the second was impossible. There was no branch of her religious order for priests, and in her advanced age she seemed in no position to start such a venture (her Sisters and Brothers had already been founded thirty years earlier). But as this desire would not disappear, my growing acquaintance with Mother Teresa reached a point where I was comfortable enough to mention the idea of beginning an order of priests devoted to her mission. Ironically, it would be this second, more improbable quest that would be realized first, well before my original endeavor to learn the secret of the words on the chapel wall.
After a long process of discussion and discernment, peppered with starts and stops, in the summer of 1983 Mother Teresa at last decided to undertake the foundation of a branch of her order for priests, to eventually be called the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. As I had come back to Rome after a series of assignments in the United States, once Mother Teresa said yes, we went together to the Vatican to seek permission and advice in establishing the new foundation.
After setting up our first house in a run-down area of New York’s South Bronx, the first years were taken up not only with ministry in the streets and soup kitchens, but also in crafting the infrastructure of our fledgling community. In drafting our first constitutions, I wanted to present as full an understanding of Mother Teresa’s grace as possible, as a model for our own — and so I hoped to include some more telling reference to, and explanation of, her experience on the train. To that end, I set out to gather as much information as possible about her trip to Darjeeling, in an attempt