belief in the incarnation
Cards (4)
- Mother Teresa, like many in the Catholic Christian Tradition, upheld the fundamental belief of the incarnation of Christ. This encompasses the idea that because ‘God so love the world’ he ‘gave his only son’ to redeem them from the impediment of sin inhibiting a life everlasting (John 3:16).
- Before the Significant Life Experience
- Mother Teresa’s adherence to these belief was strong.
- This is given in her commitment to being a Lorreto Sister for 17 years, providing education to those in impoverished circumstances.
- In being a novitate from 1929 onwards, Mother Teresa was increasingly exposed to the insurgency of poverty, with such suffering denoted as the ‘the manifestation of the Lord’ (In My Own Words, Mother Teresa).
- Mother Teresa’s work, in this sense, represented a commitment to living out the care and compassion as exemplified by Christ.
- After the Significant Life Experience
- It is after the significant life experience that these levels of adherence and understanding become elevated.
- Mother Teresa, in her 1979 Noble Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, would provide her understanding of the incarnation, that ‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only son’.
- Pursuant to her written prayer, I Thirst for You, Mother Teresa believed in the ‘thirst’ of Christ, complementary to the belief of Christ’s incarnation, accentuating his humanity and divine plan, giving being the flesh of God.
- It is this, then, that augments the understanding and importance of the calling to become the light of Christ, and mirror his love for the most vulnerable people in society.
- The extent to which this belief changes or becomes intensified is represented in her leaving Loreto and establishing the Missionaries of Charity, a name which ‘in other words’ manifests the ‘messengers of God’s love to the outskirts’. (In My Own Words, Mother Teresa).
- It is this subsequent commitment and adherence that leads to Mother Teresa mirroring the profound truth of the incarnation.