Mother Teresa’s Call to Mercy coming to Africa

A Call to Mercy is a book that has been published to coincide with Pope Francis’ Jubilee Year of Mercy and in particular with the canonization of Mother Teresa. It is compiled and edited by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk MC, the postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause for sainthood.

“A call to Mercy, hearts to love, hands to serve, is Mother Teresa living and speaking the fourteen works of mercy,” said Fr. Kolodiejchuk recently in an interview with Vatican Radio’s English Africa Service. Speaking from his base in Rome, Fr. Kolodiejchuk said the book features for the first time testimonies of eye witnesses of Mother Teresa.  

‘A Call to Mercy’ is written and tailored after the fourteen works of mercy. It discusses topics such as the need for us to clothe the naked and shelter the homeless; the need to counsel the doubtful; to instruct the ignorant of faith and admonish sinners; the need to visit the sick and imprisoned; the importance of honouring the dead; bearing each other’s wrongs with patience and the willingness to forgive. It also addresses the urgent need to feed the hungry, pray for the world and the importance of creating a world of love through service in the simple words of Mother Teresa herself. This excellent book containing the teachings of the saint whose ideas are valuable, relevant, and necessary for our time will be translated into many languages and also made available for an African readership said Fr. Kolodiejchuk. “Mother Teresa is not just a saint to admire but also to imitate,” he added, “as she would say, do small things with great love, ordinary things with extraordinary love.”

Moving examples of how Mother Teresa lived and indeed how a Catholic can live this Jubilee Year of Mercy are summarised in ‘A Call to Mercy.’ This is a book to read again and again. It is a legacy of what a small woman in physical stature did with the grace of God. Asked what an African can learn from Mother Teresa, Fr. Kolodiejchuk said, “the first thing is the vision of faith…” Mother Teresa lived her ordinary life by faith; we too must do the same, every day, not just on Sunday when we go to Mass but during the week he emphasised.  Second, “Relating everything to Jesus, give whatever he gives, take whatever he takes with a smile, doing those simple ordinary things with love.” And third, instead of looking at ourselves or one another as problems we should like Mother Teresa change and begin to look at ourselves as gifts: “Not a problem, not a difficulty but a gift,” Fr. Kolodiejchuk said in the interview.

Fr. Kolodiejchuk expressed sentiments of gratitude to God for the joy that he and all the Missionaries of Charity across the globe are sharing with millions of people from all walks of life for Mother Teresa’s canonization.

(Fr. Brian Nonde CMM, Vatican Radio correspondent)

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