The same delicate care that Mother Teresa showed to the dying was expressed as well in her attention to the dead. She showed great reverence for the innate dignity of every human being, independent of their social status, race, or religion, treating everyone with utmost respect. This was particularly evident in the Home for the Dying (Kalighat), where, while battling for the survival of those on the edge of death, she would make sure that those who died had funeral rites done according to the practices of their respective religions. She could have easily been excused from such effort, as it could have been considered exaggerated, or even extravagant, when there was so much to do for the sick. However, she wanted to show this delicate love even after the person had passed on to eternity. Whatever pertained to the dignity of the human person was important and sacred, deserving of every respect to the very end.

Though today burying the dead has a different connotation than it had in the Middle Ages, when often it meant putting one’s own life in danger in plague-devastated cities, this act of mercy nonetheless calls upon us to give due respect to the human body after the person’s mortal life has ended. Many a saint has died as a consequence of a disease caught while assisting people during plague epidemics of various kinds, while many others have courageously faced personal dangers to aid their neighbors in danger. In particular, we have the example of Father Damien, who gave his life to help the lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Indeed, Mother Teresa had great devotion to him. We may not be faced with situations that invite us to such heroic acts, yet we will surely be called to face the reality of death and to carry out those acts of charity that are required of this particular work of mercy.

HER WORDS

Are You Sure He Is Dead?

Once they brought a man dying from the street. The Hindus have the custom where they pray around the body, then they put fire in the mouth and the man starts to burn. They put fire in the mouth of that man and he got up! He said, “Give me water!” They brought him to Kalighat. I was there. I didn’t know the story. So I went to see him and he was barely moving. So I said, “This one is already one step up!” So I washed his face….He opened his eyes wide, he gave me a beautiful smile, and he died. I phoned, and they told me the story and asked, “Are you really sure that he is dead?”1

That Love of Christ Infected Everyone

When I went last time to Tanzania, all the non-Christian leaders of the tribes came to me just to thank me for the sisters. They said they had never seen God’s love in action as [when] they saw what the sisters did for the Burundi refugees. More than twelve thousand people came at the same time, and these little sisters were running in and burying the dead and carrying the sick and all that. It was simply an opening for the whole of that region, for the whole of [the Tanzanian] people. They had never seen anything like that, so living, so real, and yet so full of joy. The sisters told me that during that time even the people in the shops would say, “Come, sisters, take what you need, take what you need.” And they would go and take from the shops whatever they needed for the people and without paying anything. It was so beautiful. That shows you that that love of Christ in those sisters infected everybody else. It was, I believe it was something terrible, but again it was the way the sisters did it. The way they touched the people, the way they carried the dead, the way they had to bury them.

They told of a mother, she came with nine children, and by the time she went to the camp she had only one; all the rest had died. And so, whatever the sisters did for that woman and those children…it is something that we must be able to keep…up, in our own homes, in our own area, wherever we are. This is what the people are hungry for, this is what the young people today want.2

Just Hold My Hand

Last Sunday…there was a man dying there, and he didn’t want anything. He said, “Just hold my hand and with my hand in your hand, I am ready to go.” There he sat, was lying there all cold, only his face was still bright, but that’s all that he wanted. He didn’t want me to say anything or to do anything, only to just sit on his bed and hold his hand, and he felt quite ready to go. Maybe you will have that experience somewhere someday. This is very beautiful how much people trust us and how much they love us that they can trust themselves with us like that. We have this experience continually all over the place.3

Those who are materially poor can be very wonderful people. One day we went out and we picked up four people from the street, and one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the sisters, you take care of the other three, I will take care of the one who looks worse. So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand and she said one word only—“Thank you”—and she died. I could not help but examine my conscience before her, and I asked myself what would I say if I were in her place, and my answer was very simple: I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, “I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain or something,” but she gave me much more. She gave me her grateful love and she died with a smile on her face.4

I Am Going to Die Like an Angel

I will never forget the man I picked up from an open drain—except for his face…worms were crawling on his body. There were holes in his body everywhere, he was eaten up alive. He must have fainted and fallen into an open drain and people must have passed and passed, but the dirt had covered him up, and I saw something moving and I saw it was a human being. I took him out, took him to our house, and he was still. I had not yet begun cleaning him, but the only words he said, “I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, loved and cared for.” Two hours after, by the time we finished cleaning him, he died. But there was such a radiating joy in his face. I’ve never seen that kind of joy—real—the joy that Jesus came to give us.5

HER EXAMPLE: THE TESTIMONIES

Die with Dignity

The first time that Mother had the idea of opening her home for the dying was when she saw a woman on the street, and she took her to the hospital, and she was refused admission. Mother was adamant and refused to budge till that woman was given a bed on the floor. Later she died. Mother could not understand how a human being, made in the image of God, could die in this state. It was then that the idea came to her that she should help people who were refused by the hospitals, especially the poor, to die with dignity.6

Hopeless Cases

I have been with Mother when we did not find any hospital accepting the poor who were dying on the street. We went to so many hospitals for care and treatment. They said, “These are hopeless cases.” And people died in inhuman conditions on the streets, uncared for. And so Mother’s concern was to give them the best, at least to give them a home—to clean them, to feed them, and to make them feel at home….Mother’s purpose of founding homes for the dying was not to make a hospital. When I finished my training in medicine, she did not want me to begin a medical institution. Even if I wanted this, she said, “No. When they need such medical care, we will take them to the hospital. We do our part which nobody will do—to wash them, to clean them, to feed them, and then take them to the doctors, to the nearest hospital.”7

God Created You in His Image

We have to go back to the time when Mother first started the homes in Kalighat, basically to give dignity to the person who was dying on the streets of Calcutta. Here was a person thrown away by society, from life, and did not have the basic dignity of dying in a respectful way. So for her, she was not out to open hospitals and try to cure everybody from everything. She was there to pick up the person from the street, people who were being walked over or walked past, saying, “You are a creation of God. God created you in His image, and therefore I see Jesus in you and want to give you the dignity of dying with respect.” She was not out to try to cure every disease and find answers to all the ways people were dying. She was there to look after the person and give that dignity in that last moment of his life. For this she was criticized, for that was the call in her life, and to her credit she gave dignity and respect and love to many, who died in Calcutta and many other places.8

They Die as Human Beings

The treatment given in Kalighat [Nirmal Hriday], the Home for the Dying, is far better than the treatment given in the government hospitals. Those who come to Nirmal Hriday are the worst cases that have no hope of survival. Because of lack of treatment, they have reached to such a state that there is no hope of getting well. And yet, due to the loving care and treatment, many of them get well. Also some of them die there, but die like a human being, not like animals [on the street].9

What a Beautiful Way to Die

A sister and myself were going with Mother to Tengra for a workshop arranged by the CRS [Catholic Relief Services]. And Mother was going to give a talk. We were in our small ambulance. As the ambulance reached near Moulali Crossing, all of us saw someone lying on the roadside. And Mother said, “I think there is a patient lying there.”…Our driver said, “That is a mad person,” and he crossed the road to go ahead. But Mother said to him, “Just turn the car, and let us go back and see.” And he turned the vehicle, came back, and stopped the car next to that person. Mother and all of us got out and to our surprise we saw it was a young woman, lying there, burning with fever, and she was lying in her own excreta, etc. Immediately, we put her in the stretcher and took her to Tengra. Mother told the sisters to give her a bath, and change her clothes, and to bring her to Kalighat immediately. And that patient died next day. Mother told us, “When I saw her lying there, something clicked inside me, that is why I turned the car and came back to see.”10

Beyond Human Capacity

We both went [to Kalighat]. One of the sisters called Mother and said, “Mother, there is a person here who is asking for you.” This person on the bed could hardly speak. Mother said, “What is it?” She bent down and cuddled his head in her arms, and it was such a wonderful sight to see someone doing this. It is something beyond the human capacity to do this to a person full of wounds, pus all over him, and in such a bad state. We would get sick looking at that sight. He was smelling. Mother caressed him and asked, “What do you want? What is the matter with you?” And he smiled at Mother so beautifully with his broken teeth. Again Mother asked in Bengali, “Do you want something?” “Yes,” he said, “I want to eat a jalebi” (an Indian sweet). So Mother said, “Go get a jalebi for him.” So my mother went out, and just outside was a person making them. She quickly bought one. Mother took it and put this jalebi into the man’s mouth. He could not swallow it. He was on his last breath. But he took the jalebi, smiled from ear to ear. He tried to eat it and then just died. Mother said, “Look, what a beautiful way to die.” Imagine, if death could be so beautiful, I think, this would be a beautiful place that we have, to have had Mother with us. That person who died in Mother’s arms, must have surely gone to heaven. These miracles took place every day.11

The Same Jesus

Mother used to come very often to Kalighat. On a Sunday she came to Mass. One of the novices offered Mother a stool to sit down. Mother refused to sit on the stool, but she sat at the edge of the bed of a patient who was dying. All through the Mass, Mother’s left hand was on the dying person. Mother was partially attending to the man, and fully attending the Mass. She kept on caressing him. The man was dying and even during the consecration time, Mother’s one hand was on the man. After Mother received Communion and came back, she put her hand on the man, and that patient died. I could really understand the saying of Mother, “The Jesus who is present in the breaking of the bread is the same Jesus who is present in the broken bodies of the poor.”12

She Was Seeing Jesus

Our Mother came to visit us in Port-au-Prince in 1980. We went with Mother to the home of the dying. Mother spoke with all of them, each of them was important for her, but Mother then arrived at one bed, where a young man was dying, in terrible pain (he had TB and had developed a terrible disease; he was losing all his skin). Mother stopped near him. I just stood watching, contemplating. I do not remember what Mother said, but I knew that she was seeing Jesus. There was such kindness, such love, such tenderness, such sacredness in Mother’s attitude that again I do not find words to express what I saw. I never saw anyone touching a suffering person as Mother did at that moment. It was all divine.13

I Am on My Way to Heaven

I was a volunteer in the MCs, the Gift of Love Home for men with AIDS in Greenwich Village, New York, and one night I’m talking to one of the men about ten p.m., one of the residents who was a drug addict. We were talking about different things and he said the best thing that ever happened to him in his life was getting AIDS. And I mean if I wasn’t sitting in the chair I probably would have fallen down. Because I’m saying to myself, if this is the best thing that ever happened to this man in his life, what could the worst thing be! And I said, “But why do you feel this way, how could this be the best thing?” And he said, “Because if I didn’t get AIDS, I would have died in the street as a drug addict with nobody to love me.” That is a miracle.14

The Worst Disease, Loneliness

How many people, how many people died in India and other parts of the world with no one at their side? How many people…because Mother would always say, “The worst disease in the world is not cancer, it is not AIDS, the worst disease in the world is loneliness,” when someone does not have anyone who cares about them. In the Home of the Dying,…one Christmas Day when I was volunteering there, I was bringing a dead man into the area to be washed before he was going to be taken away by the hearse, and there was a beautiful sign leading into this area that said, very simply, I AM ON MY WAY TO HEAVEN. How simple! Mother had a rare ability, the gift, the holiness, the miraculous gift to reduce some of the most complex situations in life to very simple situations.15

She Went in Ice-Cold Weather

In 1988 Mother went to Armenia, where thousands and thousands of people were buried under debris [after two earthquakes had happened on the same day]. She went in ice-cold weather….Together with the sisters, [Mother] carried out the people who were still alive from among the debris….In Spitak, she has a name that the Armenians will never forget.16

While Calcutta Burned with Hatred

In 1963 the Hindu-Muslim riots were happening in Calcutta. People were trapped in pockets all over the city. Mother called me to her room and told me about the bodies of Muslim patients who were lying in Kalighat and could not be taken to the Muslim place of burial. She needed my father’s help. My dad at the time was a colonel in the army. I rang Dad and told him the problem and he came over immediately….Mother and I went to my parents’ home at Fort William, where Dad changed into his army uniform and got a contingent of army vehicles to accompany us to Kalighat. We spent the day taking the bodies of the Muslim patients to their burial place and the bodies of the Hindu patients to the burning ghats.

We then went to the Fatima Shrine (which at that time was a large bamboo construction). There Father Henry was saying Mass while the slums around the area were burning, and Christian people who had no home were huddled in the shrine. I remember Mother running up to the altar and whispering to Father Henry to finish Mass, while Dad and I and the rest of the army personnel helped the Christian people into the trucks and we took them to a shelter on Lower Circular Road, which is now the new extension to Shishu Bhavan. I have never been so afraid and so exhilarated at the same time. There was fire all around us. Masses of burning [Molotov cocktails were] being hurled down the streets, and we with these hundreds of men, women, and children were trying to survive. I was just a young novice, but I saw that, while Calcutta burned with hatred, there was Mother Teresa helping the Muslim, the Hindu, and the Christian. Her love for her neighbor knew no bounds. Mother never forgot that day, and whenever she spoke to me about Dad she would recall the horror of that day and the lives we saved.17

Today I Have Become a Man

One day when Mother Teresa and Father Gabrić were in Kalighat looking after one of the dying destitutes, Father Fallon and a young Hindu student came in. A few moments later, as they stood there looking, the sick man suddenly died. He happened to be a Muslim. A stretcher was brought to take the dead body away. As the young Hindu watched, Mother Teresa, Father Gabrić, and Father Fallon lifted the body and placed it on the stretcher. Father Gabrić noticed that the young Hindu was hesitating. A struggle was going on in him. He had seen Father Fallon, whom he greatly admired, and Mother Teresa, whose reputation was so great, lift that dead body, and that had obviously made a deep impression on him. Now the three of them were about to carry the dead body away on that stretcher!…Something made him feel that he should join in, that he should offer himself to be the fourth man carrying that stretcher,…but there was in him that deeply ingrained fear of loss of caste….How could he, a Brahmin, carry the dead body of a Muslim?…Father Gabrić understood all that by looking at the young man. And then suddenly the young Hindu made up his mind and asked, “Can I help?” Father Gabrić at once moved to one side, letting [the young man] take the fourth arm of the stretcher. And so the four of them carried the dead man where the dead bodies were kept. When they laid down the stretcher, Father Gabrić heard the young man heave a deep sigh and say: “AJ ami manush hoechi!” [in Bengali]—that is to say, “Today I have become a man!” And he meant, of course, a free man, a man who had overcome those barriers that separate man from man!18

Mother Would Touch Each One Tenderly

Mother [regularly went] to [Nirmal Hriday, the Home for the Dying] on Sundays. Mother would pray at the entrance with us, put on her apron, take the broom, and start cleaning and doing the humble work. Whenever a dying person was brought in, Mother would be there to attend. Mother would touch each one tenderly and say a few words to them.

Every day, Mother used to wash the mortuary, keep the dead bodies very nicely. One day I saw Mother and one man together carrying a dead body wrapped up with white sheets, taking it to the mortuary. Then I was frightened, but I ran and took it from the man’s hand. Then Mother smiled and we put the stretcher down, and with gentle, delicate reverence she put the body on the shelf in the mortuary.19

The Mother Fed the Child with Her Blood

To describe God’s love for us, Mother Teresa used the example of how an Armenian mother loved her child to the extent of giving her own life for the child’s sake. After the earthquake in Armenia in 1988, it happened that this mother and her child were trapped under the debris without being completely crushed. But they could not get out and had no food or water. The mother did what she could to save the child from dying. She had no other way except to cut one of her own fingers and feed the child with her blood, and so that is what she did. When the rescue workers reached them, they found the mother and the child in a terrible state. The mother was worse than the child: her condition was already critical. They tried to save them both, but later the mother died. The child however was saved. This is a story of true motherly love. She preferred to save the child, even if she lost her own life.20

REFLECTION

“I had performed many charitable deeds for my kindred, members of my people. I would give my bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked. If I saw one of my people who had died and been thrown behind the wall of Nineveh, I used to bury him.” (Tobit 1:16, 17)

“God created you in His image, and therefore I see Jesus in you and want to give you the dignity of dying with respect.”21

What can I do to help the family of someone who has died? In addition to expressing my condolences, can I offer some concrete service or help?

Respect is to be shown to others even after they have died; at times we can do no more for the dead than to spare them a negative remark. Our being charitable will not change their condition, but it will help us to discipline our thoughts and words, teaching us to preserve the good name not only of the dead but also of the living.

PRAYER

Father,

I abandon myself into Your hands;

do with me as You will.

Whatever You may do, I thank You:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me

and in all Your creatures—

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to You with all the love of my heart,

for I love You, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into Your hands

without reserve, and with boundless confidence,

for You are my Father.

Amen.

—Blessed Charles de Foucauld, prayed by Mother Teresa on Tuesdays