Stephanie Emmons - She Made Me Laugh: Mother Teresa and the Call to Holiness

Mother Teresa and the Call to Holiness

STEPHANIE EMMONS

2020 First Printing

She Made Me Laugh: Mother Teresa and the Call to Holiness

Copyright 2020 by Stephanie Emmons

ISBN 978-1-64060-184-0

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

The writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta by the Mother Teresa Center, exclusive licensee throughout the world of the Missionaries of Charity for the works of Mother Teresa. Used with permission.

Excerpt(s) from MOTHER TERESA: COME BE MY LIGHT by Mother Teresa, edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., copyright 2007 by The Mother Teresa Center. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Cover photo located at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mutter_Teresa_von_Kalkutta.jpg / color rebalanced for this cover. Cover photo by: Manfredo Ferrari.

The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) are trademarks of Paraclete Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Emmons, Stephanie, 1969- author.

Title: She made me laugh : Mother Teresa and the call to holiness / Stephanie Emmons.

Description: Brewster, Massachusetts : Paraclete Press, 2020. | Summary: A memoir of direct experiences with Mother Teresa, when Emmons discovered her sense of humor first hand, and is also a reflection on the saints dark night of the soul-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020014722 | ISBN 9781640601840

Subjects: LCSH: Teresa, Mother, Saint, 1910-1997. | Emmons, Stephanie, 1969---Travel--India.

Classification: LCC BX4700.T397 E46 2020 | DDC 271/.97 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014722

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All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

To

Catherine and Loi, the lights of my life. Thanks for your patience and understanding these past few years when I often had to divide my time, energy, and attention between you and the book. Thank you for helping me find joy in the present moment and for making it easy to laugh at myself.

And to

Miriam Browning without you this whole adventure never would have happened! Thanks for making me laugh.

I n January of 1996, when my friend Miriam and I were in our twenties, we followed our mutual dream and traveled to India. Our aim: to help the poor in Calcutta and, hopefully, to meet Mother Teresa.

We had wanted to see her community, the Missionaries of Charity, in action and hoped they would let us roll up our sleeves and jump in alongside them. So, once we got settled in Calcutta, found out Mother Teresas address and mapped out our route, Miriam and I just walked over and showed up at her door.

As we had hoped, the sisters were gracious and happy to have us. They ushered us right in and we got to meet Mother Teresa that very day. And it was just that simple. Im not sure what I had expected. But I do recall hoping that, if we did get to meet her, we might witness some really cool saintlike quality or manifestationsomething. But she didnt levitate. No glowing halo crowned her head, no great throng of followers hung on her every word. There was nothing like that. And though she must have received thousands of visitors over the years, Mother Teresa was patient and welcoming to Miriam and me when we met her.

What has stayed with me all these years is the kindness in her eyes. But there was something I didnt expect: her sense of humor. She made me laugh. Not just once, but every time we met her. It seemed to come naturallyan easy kind of joking around. I remember thinking that aside from her being a living saint, I liked her as a person. She didnt seem self-conscious or shy. She was the kind of person who puts you at ease and makes you want to hang around, even if it was just to shoot the breeze. She was just theresimple, funny, intense. And perfectly ordinary.

This book shares some parts of the travel journal I began during the trip, letters I sent home, and reflections Ive written in the years since. And while there are plenty of, Wow! Were in India! moments, I also talk about some of the darker parts of the trip for me. I had wanted to go to India since I first learned of Mother Teresa when I was a kid. But once I actually got there, things took a downward turn. I was overwhelmed by pretty much everything.

In the years following Mother Teresas death in 1997, some of her private writings surfaced. They told a story of a woman in love with God, but a woman who also knew great spiritual pain. As I had naturally assumed that Mother Teresas life was pretty much one of profound, unbroken closeness to God, I, like many others, was flabbergasted. I came across an article in Time magazine which did this big expos. They titled it Mother Teresas Crisis of Faith, which effectively turned the world on its ear. One of the people they interviewed, Father James Martin, sj, echoed my own feelings when he asked, that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?

Ive had a hard time coming to terms with all of this. Even more surprisingly, though, was the discovery that that playfulness and good humor I had seen, and the pain she described in her lettersthese could be present at the same time. It wasnt necessarily one or the other. In fact, apparently, its a very real aspect in the spiritual life, this both/and themeone that mystics and saints have long been acquainted with. I came to learn that maybe theres much more to her storyand our storythan might be discernible at first blush.

But Ill start at the beginning, back in the peculiar days of pet rocks, bell bottoms, and peace symbols: 1979

T he year was 1979. My grade six buddies and I, sporting our polyester seventies wear, were chatty and excited. It wasnt every day we got to watch a film at school. Our teacher had said that this one was called Something Beautiful for God. We were all sitting cross-legged on the orange shag carpet in the library at Pope John XXIII School in Ottawa, Canada. My friend Lisa and I sat with our knees touching; we were always together. Then someone turned out the lights and the show began.

I saw the image of a small woman with dark skin and a white outfit. Whos that? I asked, looking up at Mrs. McGetrick, the school librarian who was standing beside me. Shh she said slowly with a little smile, a straight index finger pressed to her lips. Then in a whisper, Youll see. What I saw on the screen over the next hour struck a strange chord in me. The music was sad, and the woman was slowly walking toward the camera, holding a scrawny child by the hand. Neither of them looked too cheerful. I didnt understand what was going on, but I was spellbound. There was something about her.