Mother Teresa and St. John Paul II: a look at their holy friendship

CNA Staff, Sep 4, 2024 / 16:46 pm

Today is the eighth anniversary of Mother Teresa’s canonization. Pope Francis declared her a saint on Sept. 4, 2016 — just over a dozen years after she was beatified by her friend and fellow saint, Pope John Paul II. 

St. Teresa of Calcutta, who was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, gained fame around the world for caring for the poorest of the poor and sharing Christ’s love with them. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order that carries on her work today around the world. 

St. John Paul II and Mother Teresa, two of the most famous and consequential Catholic saints of the 20th century, weren’t just friends. As followers of Christ, they complemented each other in profound ways, with Mother Teresa putting into practice so many of the Catholic teachings that John Paul eloquently taught. 

“Where John Paul provided the theological and intellectual foundation for understanding human dignity in the face of the great darkness of the 20th century — abortion, euthanasia, atheism, communism, and materialism — Mother Teresa was a living witness to what the pope was teaching,” the editors of the National Catholic Register noted in 2016. 

Though Mother Teresa was a decade older than John Paul, they both experienced significant milestones in their faith lives in 1946 — he was ordained a priest that year and Sister Teresa heard a “call within a call” to serve the poor on the streets of Calcutta. Throughout both of their lives, they were deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary and to the rosary. 

In 1986, the pope visited Mother Teresa’s hospice center, Nirmal Hriday, which she had founded in 1952 in the heart of the slums in Calcutta. Tens of thousands of sick and forgotten people, who would otherwise have perished on the streets, died a dignified death at the center over the decades. 

According to news reports, Pope John Paul was “visibly moved” and even disturbed by what he saw at the hospice, such that he was rendered speechless. He called Nirmal Hriday “a place that bears witness to the primacy of love.”

“Our human dignity comes from God … in whose image we are all made. No amount of privation or suffering can ever remove this dignity, for we are always precious in the eyes of God,” he said in a speech given outside the center.

In Nirmal Hriday, “the mystery of human suffering meets the mystery of faith and love,” the pope continued; there, people ask every day why God would allow such death and suffering.

“And the answer that comes, often in unspoken ways of kindness and compassion, is filled with honesty and faith: ‘I cannot fully answer all your questions; I cannot take away all your pain. But of this I am sure: God loves you with an everlasting love. You are precious in his sight. In him I love you too. For in God we are truly brothers and sisters,’” the pope said. 

Mother Teresa later described the day of the pope’s visit as “the happiest day of my life.” 

At that meeting and whenever they met afterward, John Paul would kiss the top of the diminutive nun’s head and offer her a blessing, while she fervently kissed his papal ring.

Mother Teresa died in 1997. At her beatification in 2003, an aging John Paul said: “I am personally grateful to this courageous woman, whom I have always felt beside me. Mother Teresa, an icon of the Good Samaritan, went everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor.”

“Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor of humanity. In her we honor one of the most important figures of our time. Let us welcome her message and follow her example,” the pope said of his friend.

“Virgin Mary, queen of all the saints, help us to be gentle and humble of heart like this fearless messenger of love. Help us to serve every person we meet with joy and a smile. Help us to be missionaries of Christ, our peace and our hope. Amen!”