“You did it to me”

St. Teresa of Calcutta used to say that you have the Gospel on one hand. Pointing to one finger at a time, she would say slowly “You… did… it… to… me.” This maxim of Mother Teresa was drawn from Matthew 25:40,which states, “Whatsoever you did to the least of these brethren of mine, you did it unto me.” 

Every seminarian at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary participates in a “Pastoral Field Experience.” The goal of these assignments is to begin to develop the pastoral charity necessary to love our neighbors for the sake of God. 

Every other Saturday a brother seminarian and I wake up at 4:30 a.m. and set out on an hour-and-a-half drive to our nation’s capital, where we serve the residents of the Missionaries of Charities “Gift of Peace” AIDS Hospice Center. Not all of the residents have AIDS. It is also a residence for homeless people who are socially or medically compromised. 

When we arrive, our tasks vary from visit to visit, but it generally begins with Mass, followed by serving breakfast to the residents, and then some sort of reflection offered by myself or the other seminarian on the coming Sunday Gospel. Many of the men we serve have immigrated to America and speak little to no English. Each week provides an opportunity to try different modes of communication. I’ve found that learning phrases in their native tongue or simply offering a warm smile greatly aids our efforts to show each of them that they are loved by Jesus Christ. Mother Teresa says: 

“Today, besides the poverty, material poverty… that makes people die of hunger, die of cold, die in the streets—there is a great poverty of being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, having no one to call your own, having no one to smile at, and sometimes it happens to our old people whom we call shut-ins… They [the poorest] are nobody, they are just there, they’re unknown, they are known by the number of their room, but they are not known to be loved and served… He’s alive and he loves us and he wants us—that’s why Jesus made himself Bread of Life… and then he makes himself the hungry one so that we can satisfy his hunger for human love.” 

Mother Teresa’s obituary also reads, “I see God in every human being. When I wash a leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself.” This is at the heart of what the Sisters and the men have taught me, by serving them, by loving them, I am serving Jesus, I am loving Jesus. This is Matthew 25:40 in action. 

One particular Saturday, I was charged with changing the soiled linens and mopping the rooms, bathrooms, and halls of the resident dormitories. In my pre-seminary life, I worked in healthcare for a number of years in various roles, and that experience taught me to do a good job as quickly as possible so that you are able to get as much done in your 12-hour shift as possible (not a foreign concept to our swift hard-working German mentality which says more work, less play). 

The Sisters took issue with this (of course they were very nice about it), but they made sure to let me know! One of the Sisters approached me and said, “Brother William, you must pray as you mop, you must pray as you change the linens. Mother says that each of these men are Jesus. When you mop their room, pray as if you are cleaning Jesus’ tomb. When you are making their beds, pray as if you are setting the altar. The fitted sheet is like the altar cloth, and the chux pad is the corporal. See, brother?” It was at that moment that I really understood what Mother Teresa meant when she said, “We cannot all do great things, but we all can do small things with great love.” 

This was a great learning opportunity for me. In my daily studies, I started asking myself, how can I do this with greater love? How can I make my desk my altar of sacrifice? I now approach my studies with my future parishioners in mind. The things I am learning about God and the Church are not only for my own nourishment and edification. They will soon be the food I feed to the people of God for years to come. None of it is insignificant.