September 5, 2025 // Optional Memorial of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Virgin

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Colossians 1:15-20

Reflect on the Word // 

I wiped away tears inconspicuously as the treadmill rolled on. Using a documentary about Mother Teresa to motivate me, I looked forward to watching more each day. I’d seen it before but that didn’t matter. The footage of her greeting crowds and cradling babies, caressing the faces of the sick and suffering, folding her hands in prayer—in every frame, love poured forth from her wrinkled face through the screen. It made me want to “do something beautiful for God” too (source, p. 125).

It’s always fascinated me how even the secular world recognized her extraordinary witness. There are many saintly social workers, but they aren’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Rather, there is something supernatural drawing our collective attention and admiration here. Saint Paul tells us that “Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,” and in union with Jesus, Mother Teresa tangibly expressed and imaged that love to the world. 

After entering religious life, she received a call within a call, eventually founding the Missionaries of Charity to answer Jesus’ cry from the Cross in His thirst for souls. Her vocation was undoubtedly unique, but an individual call from God is not rare. You and I are each called to a particular vocation and mission that only we can respond to. The circumstances will surely be different, but the heart is the same—because we bear His image and are baptized into Christ, we, too, make visible the love of the invisible God. 

Mother Teresa discovered the all-surpassing greatness of Jesus, Who “is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” and gave Him her all in return (Colossians 1:17). Through years of painful purifications and persevering prayer, she began to look more and more like the Beloved—so much so that the whole world could see it.

This transformation is offered to us as well—for all that we have and are to be transformed into all that He is—and it is the formula for sainthood.

Relate to the Lord // What can you offer to Jesus today? Ask Him what graces He is waiting to give you.