Feast Day: September 5
St. Teresa of Calcutta Novena
September 5th: Feast Day
September 5 is the Feast Day of St. Teresa of Calcutta. Find a reflection and the text of the canonization homily.
Need a different day? Links are at the end of this post.
Feast Day Reflection
Holiness is a Simple Duty
Whenever Mother Teresa was asked to speak, she would always repeat with firm conviction: “Holiness is not the luxury of the few, but a simple duty for you and for me.” This sanctity is an intimate union with Christ: “Believe that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is life – and sanctity is nothing but that same Jesus intimately living in you.”
A Contemplative in the Heart of the World
Living in this intimate union with Jesus in the Eucharist and in the poor “24 hours a day”, as she would say, Mother Teresa became a true contemplative in the heart of the world. “Therefore, doing it with Him, we are praying the work – for in doing it with Him, doing it for Him, doing it to Him, we are loving Him. And in loving Him we come more and more into that oneness with him, and we allow Him to live His life in us. And this living of Christ in us in holiness.” (St. Teresa of Calcutta)
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.
Holy Mass and Rite of Canonization
Excerpts from the Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis
Saint Peter’s Square, 4 September 2016
Serving Jesus in Others
We are called to translate into concrete acts that we invoke in prayer and profess in faith. There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of others, even when they don’t know it, are those who love God. (cf. 1Jn 3:16-18; Jas 2:14-18).
Vocation to Charity
The Christian life, however, is not merely extending a hand in times of need. The task that the Lord gives us, on the contrary, is the vocation to charity in which each of Christ’s disciples puts his or her entire life at his service, so grow each day in love.
Each time we bend down to the needs of our brothers and sisters, we give Jesus something to eat and drink; we clothe, we help, and we visit the Son of God (cf. Mt. 25:40).
Without Expecting Thanks
Following Jesus is a serious task and at the same time one filled with joy. It takes a certain daring and courage to recognize the divine Master in the poorest of the poor and to give oneself in their service. In order to do so, volunteers, out of love of Jesus, serve the poor and the needy and do not expect any thanks or recompense. Rather, they renounce all this because they have discovered true love.
Treating Everyone with Dignity
Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, made herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”. She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity.
Witness of God's Closeness to All
For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” that gave flavour to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering. Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor.
Vatican Library
Click to read the entire homily in the Vatican Library.
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CREDITS
The LOGO image of Our Lady of Grace is original artwork by Martin Lariviere in 2009. We have the artist’s permission (my son). It is our exclusive trademark logo image.
Raphael painted The Sistine Madonna circa (1513-1514). We made circular cut-outs from the original image.
The sketches of St. Teresa of Calcutta with a child and the scene with a person walking past the dying art by artist Sandra Van Raay. Sandra Van Raay shared her art as downloadable Catholic colouring pages. They are free to use in a classroom, church, or home but not to be sold. We posted her work on our website with her permission.
The homily for the Canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta is directly from the Vatican.
Our information is from general knowledge, experience, and shared internet sources. We’d like you to use it as a starting point for your research to verify facts and build a reference list.
Photos
A beautifully photographed sky by Donald Tong inspired the website’s colour scheme. Cropped portions of it are the background for the footer Bible verse. He shared it as a free download on pexels.com.
The official photo of St. Teresa of Calcutta’s canonization shows a face worn with work and warmed with loving concern for others. It is a free image from favpng.com.
The black & white photo of Mother Teresa is a free download at cleanPNG.
The Photo of the Vatican is from Easter, 2008.
Dinax on Cathopic shared the photo of people helping a disabled person in a wheelchair and the photo of the hands.