When Love Came to Town posted 11/28/2008 9:53:08 PM | 26 kudos what's this?     report abuse

PsychoMagnet

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I've seen love conquer the great divide

~ U2: "When Love Comes to Town"

Whenever I see one of those TV preachers talking love while sporting a $2,000 suit and a $200 haircut, I know they're setting me up for that moment when they look into the camera with that mock-solemn glare and ask me for a donation to support their lifestyle. It is in these kinds of moments that I think of Agnes.

It was in Calcutta during the middle of the last century when Agnes came to town. She was a tiny woman who sported religious garb, a frail body and a smile. It was Agnes who sought out the forgotten, the "poorest of the poor", the crippled and the blind. It was Agnes in the leper colony who embraced and cleansed the sores of those the rest of us would run from. It was Agnes, bereft of wealth and physical beauty, who raised the moral conscienceness of mankind with her example of pure and unconditional love.

Agnes came to know the world as a place where "there is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much." The world came to know Agnes as Mother Teresa.

In 1979, Agnes won the Nobel Peace Prize. She refused the prize money, but accepted the prize with these words:

"I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

In this special time of the year, let us, at once, be saddened by the number of those who are forgotten and grateful for the number of those who make it point to remember. Let us remember Agnes . . .and each other.

Merry Christmas

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