It has been awhile since we returned from Calcutta but a large part of my heart never came home.  Working at the home for the dying was an unexplainable experience, more difficult and traumatizing than any task I could ever imagine to have.  Every second was a new feat of humility and servanthood.  In our cautious tendencies we, as humans, stay away from the ideas of death, pain and suffering and for good reason.  In all my travels and service trips I have seen many things and many terrible things…but there is nothing like standing in the place of the most ravished and abandoned people in the world and feeding them their last meal, holding their hand to their last breath.  There is nothing like it and nothing in my life will ever make sense again because of it.

This is a photo taken on the rooftop of the Kalighat home for the dying and destitute.  The words “I thirst” were written in many spots around the convents.  Daily I pondered the meaning of these words beyond the most obvious definition. I am reading a book of Mother Teresa’s private writings, which I strongly recommend to anyone who has an interest in her ideas of simple living, and radical love.  Mamma T writes of the common “I thirst” writings of the convents in a way I never considered.   She says it is hard to explain in words….which I think is the case about almost all of my India experience…

” Jesus wants me to tell you again…how much the love is that he has for each one of you.  Beyond what you can imagine…Not only He loves you, even more…He longs for you.  He misses you when you don’t come close.  He thirst for you. He loves you always, even when you don’t feel worthy…  For me it is so clear, everything in Missionaries of Charity exists only to satiate Jesus.  His words are on the wall of every Missionaries of Charity chapel, they are not from [the] past only, but alive here and now, spoken to you. Do you believe it?… Why does Jesus say “I thirst”? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words…..”I thirst” is something much deeper than Jesus saying “I love you.” Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you…you can’t begin to know who He wants to be for you.  Or who He wants you to be for him.”

-Mother Teresa

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