The only Sister to have survived a terrorist attack on a Missionaries of Charity-run care home in Yemen in March has given her testimony to pilgrims in Rome.
Sister Mary Sally said all the Sisters at the care home had chosen to stay with their patients despite the violence that had engulfed the country.
“In the midst of this dangerous situation, our dearest Sister Prema, the general superior, called us from Calcutta and spoke to us individually. She gave us a choice to remain or leave the place,” she said on Saturday. “All of us had one answer: ‘We choose to stay, to live or die with our poor.’”
Despite shortages of food, water and medicine and with violence increasing, she said, their hearts were “filled with greater love and enthusiasm”.
Four Missionaries of Charity and 12 other people were killed by uniformed gunmen who entered the home the Sisters operated for the elderly and disabled in Aden. A Salesian priest who worked with the sisters was kidnapped and his whereabouts are still unknown.
The testimony was given at a special audience for people engaged in works of mercy as well as for pilgrims of Mother Teresa’s canonisation.
Pope Francis said at the audience: “I will never tire of saying that the mercy of God is not some beautiful idea but rather a concrete action.
“There is no mercy without concreteness. Mercy is not doing something good while passing by; it means involving yourself where there is evil, where there is sickness, where there is hunger, where there is human exploitation.” The Pope added that simply going to Mass or saying prayers did not make a good Christian.
Cardinal: be set on fire with Christ’s love like St Teresa
Love for those society considers “useless” or even a bother led St Teresa of Calcutta to a courageous defence of the unborn, Cardinal Pietro Parolin has said.
Like prophets and saints before her, Mother Teresa would not “kneel down before anyone but the Almighty” and would not bow before “the fashions or idols of the moment”, said Cardinal Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State.
The cardinal presided over a Mass in St Peter’s Square on September 5, Mother Teresa’s feast day, to give thanks for her canonisation. He held the saint up as “a gleaming mirror of God’s love and a marvellous example of service to one’s neighbour.” Her example, the cardinal said, is a call to Christians “to convert from being lukewarm and mediocre to allow ourselves to be set alight by the fire of Christ’s love”.
While Mother Teresa became famous for her care of the poorest of the materially poor, he said she knew the worst form of poverty was to be unwanted. “That led her to identify as ‘the poorest of the poor’ children who were not yet born and whose existence was threatened,” Cardinal Parolin said. “An unborn baby has nothing of its own; its every hope and need is in the hands of another.”
Pope prays for murdered Sister
During the canonisation Mass on Sunday Pope Francis led prayers for a Spanish nun murdered in Haiti.
Sister Isabel Sola Matas of the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, who devoted her life to helping the poor, was shot dead in an apparent robbery.
The Pope said: “I would like to remember those who spend their time in the service of our brothers and sisters in … risky environments. Let us pray especially for Sister Isabel.”
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