The Missionaries of Charity almost made me miss a flight once because they caused a little explosion of love in my heart

When I say that a little explosion of love went off in my heart, I’m trying to describe in the truest way what being smiled at felt like. It’s not that this MC saw into my soul. It’s not that she recognized me as a person. I don’t think it has anything to do with me. It was more that she herself was full of joy, and the radiance of that joy as it shone on me was like fire emanating from my own heart.

We didn’t cover anything related to the MCs that day. The lecture was not on charity or social justice or Catholic social teaching; it was on the Journey to Pascha – in fact, you can watch it on YouTube here – as OLF is on the Old Calendar, which meant that they were still in the Great Fast while I had already had Pascha the weekend before.

This meant that the conversation with the MCs revolved around the practices of the Byzantine Churches. As I found out from their superior, this was the point. Our visitors were actually a bunch of second-year MC novices, and the superior wanted them to have a well-rounded education about the breadth of Catholicism, including the Eastern churches. In turn, this education had a bit of serendipity to it. It turns out that a few weeks ago, the MC novices had been driving down Geary Street in their van and had noticed this interestingly-named parish called Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church – apparently, the MCs love Our Lady of Fatima. In a split-second decision, they had told the van driver to pull over, and they went and banged on the gates to no avail as it was a weekday. Not to be put off, they had wandered around the neighborhood and found themselves at the ROCOR Cathedral, where they became even more confused when they were told that Holy Virgin Cathedral was Orthodox and OLF Parish was Catholic, but both were Byzantine in the Russian tradition. Determined to find out what this was all about, the MCs eventually got in touch with OLF Parish, so they came to the Saturday lecture strictly as students.

This means that, as far as I’m concerned, I know the MCs simply as classmates, not as inspiring models of social work or an order with a problem with medical care.

The joy of learning alongside MCs is that – at least in this group – they treat theology as the art of being in love. As the lecture concluded, the MCs literally mobbed the priest with their questions. Most of their questions had to do with prayer as a way of stoking their fiery light of love for Christ. The MCs, of course, are a Latin order, which means that their way of staying in love with G-d is through Latin practices: eucharistic adoration, the rosary, the Divine Mercy devotions, devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. Do you have eucharistic adoration, Father? one asked. Fr Kennedy replied that adoring the Eucharist in the Byzantine Church didn’t take place as a separate devotion, but was part of the Great Entrance in the Divine Liturgy when the elements are processed from the deacon doors to the royal doors on the iconostas. When he gave this answer, the MCs cooed with delight.

Father, what about the rosary? Do you pray the rosary? It’s not a Byzantine practice, Fr Kennedy clarified, but we do use a prayer rope to keep track of how many times we pray the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

Father, what is the meaning of these icons? Father, what is the meaning of your vestments? Father, what is it that makes you Catholic?

For two hours, Fr Kennedy stood there, taking question after loving question. He went back behind the iconostas and got out vestments to show them. He took out a prayer book and read them some prayers, during which the novices broke out into smiles. He opened a side chapel and showed them a Byzantine icon of Our Lady of Fatima, and the MCs squealed in delight. In fact, this event is what plays through my mind and heart when I hear Latin Catholics asking about the Byzantine Churches; most Eastern Catholics will recall moments of frustration with Latins who think that their tradition is the only Catholicism, but this joyful moment with the MCs will likely always be the one to which I come back in those difficult moments.

After a while, the superior got fidgety. It occurred to me then that I too was late getting home, which meant that I was cutting it very close for my flight. But I found that I just could not leave; the joy in that room was far too radiant for me to be able to pull myself away from it.

Finally, the superior asked Fr Kennedy to bless them. They all knelt, and – as Charles tells Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited – I did too, because of ‘manners.’ Fr Kennedy blessed their ministry, which means that – weirdly – I feel like I got blanketed in an Eastern Catholic blessing of the MC charism, which is odd because prior to this event, I had never had any encounters with the MCs. One novice took out a prayer card of Mother Teresa and handed it to me, telling me to come visit. I told her that I lived in Vancouver. Overhearing, the superior called out, We’re there too!

When they finally left, I got back as fast I could by public transit, which was paid for by the generosity of OLF Parish’s change collection (I was all out of loose change), and barely made it for boarding my flight.

As I reflect on it, then, I suppose the canonization of St Teresa of Calcutta by the Latin Church does indeed mean something personal for me. At the beating heart of St Teresa’s sainthood is not really the work (even though that’s important) or what it contributes to Catholic social teaching (although that’s also important) or how we think about charity, social justice, and ideology (but that too is important). Instead, as the Bishop of Rome said as he ended his homily, ‘Mother Teresa loved to say, “Perhaps I don’t speak their language, but I can smile”. Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer. In this way, we will open up opportunities of joy and hope for our many brothers and sisters who are discouraged and who stand in need of understanding and tenderness.’

Maybe in this way, we will also cause others to also miss their flights because of the radiance of our joy and the fire of love for Christ that is common between Christians of both the Latin and Byzantine Churches. But perhaps – and just perhaps – here we might find the resolution for the media fallout on St Teresa of Calcutta: perhaps too much stock is being put on St Teresa and the MCs to be teaching models for charity when the truth is that we are only classmates in the school of love smiling at each other.