Today we celebrate the incredible life of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta”I will never forget her feet.
I noticed them when I worked in Calcutta with her and the sisters in the 1990s. Every morning we took off our shoes as we went into the chapel to pray. And hers were deformed.
I wondered if she had contracted leprosy or something. But wasn’t about to ask her about it. Then… One of the nuns explained it to us.
Her feet became deformed because there were just enough donated shoes for everyone to get a pair… not many extras. So Mother Teresa dug through the donations and took the worst pair of shoes for herself. And over the years, wearing the worst pair of shoes deformed her feet. Her life confounds the values of our culture — the materialism… the narcissism.
It does raise the question for us — what would the world look like if we took this idea — “love your neighbor as yourself” — literally? What if we really did “honor the needs of others above our own” (Romans 12:10)? It would transform the world.”-
An American who volunteered at Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Calcutta, India.