Question 10.157

10.157 In his book Threshold of Hope, John Paul II wrote that “God is always on the side of the suffering.”² How do you interpret this sentence?

When God appeared to Moses, he told him: “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them” (Ex 3:7-8).

God always sides with those who weep. In how many psalms do we read that God never abandons the poor? From a human perspective, we often have a feeling of rebellion when divine aid appears to be absent in the face of adversity. But throughout my journeys in the poorest countries of the world, I have observed that God remained much more present that we could ever have imagined. Indeed, through these trials and physical miseries, I have seen with my own eyes how God transforms the souls of the poor through obscure, humble sufferings that cleanse their wounds. In observing the poor, I too have learned to say, in poverty: My God, I am glad about all the trials I have experienced, and I thank you in advance for all the ones yet to come. I hope they will help to bandage the wounds of the world.

I am not forgetting the great saints whom God sent to die with the poor, such as Father Damien. After arriving on May 10, 1873, in Molokai, in the Hawaiian Islands, Saint Damien Josef de Veuster volunteered to be God’s presence in the midst of the lepers whom no one wanted to visit. Damien knew perfectly well that he had no chance of returning alive from such an adventure. After ten years of mission work in the midst of those unfortunate creatures, who had been corralled, like livestock waiting for the slaughterhouse, he contracted leprosy, which began to gnaw away at him, and it inevitably destroyed him. Yet he had chosen to give his all to the dying of Molokai for the love of God. He celebrated his last Mass, completely exhausted by leprosy, on March 28, 1889, a few days before being carried off to the Father of all mercies.

When I had the opportunity to converse with Mother Teresa, I saw a woman who was completely immersed in God. Her face had no special human beauty, but a simple, magnificent interior light, the reflection of a fire that can shine through only by ongoing contact with God. Within her dwelt a presence, a simplicity, and a serenity that came from Christ, whom she contemplated in the tabernacle for hours. Indeed, Mother Teresa attracted people, because a little bit of heaven had already come down into her soul. Her humility was that of the comrades and friends of God. The frailty of her voice and the power of her words were the tangible sign of a woman who was literally immersed in God.

Mother Teresa was acutely aware of God’s true tenderness for men and his loving care for the poor.