Mother Theresa again

Sunday. This week I'm the hebdom (remember that word?) with Fr Cignelli and Marco. Luckily Fr Cignelli offered to preside at the 8am Mass which is always preached. I presided at the 6.30am Mass which I didn't preach but I asked Fr Pazzini to say something instead. Whew!

As usual cleaned out the birdcage after breakfast (meaning a cup of cafe-latte since I've lost all appetite in the morning a monthlong now). Ephrem, an African student who just moved in, offered to help out. So I taught him what are the things that need to be done. And talk about African students, Jean Paul has finally returned - he's the last student to return back to school. And he put on alot of weight! He did some parish work in Italy, then went to Paris and then several other places.

Meantime I'm taking two courses in school as my thesis moderator asked - Advanced Hebrew and the Book of Wisdom. That means 5 hours a week in classes.

My ankle is still painful - much more so as the weather in the nights drop to 15 degrees.

Oh and as it's Sunday I turned on the Australian Christian Channel on the web and found out that there's another instalment on the film about Mother Theresa - this time in her old age. I managed to watch only the 2nd half. It was an exciting moment in the film. Her work had spread so far and wide that influential people began to gather and organise this worldwide charity - planning future work, PR, fundraising etc.... It became a business corporation. Mother Theresa simply stood up and said "We'll go back to our original charism and trust in God." Board members protested saying it was in the statutes to develope this organisation, and she said "It WAS in the statutes. It doesn't exist now." And she walked out. Everything folded up then and there. The sisters went back to the primitive idea of relying on Providence, no more board meetings of professionals. It came across clearly that Mother Theresa was gruff, direct and minced no words. People saw her as rude, ignorant and no foresight. But time has shown that she was right. In the film, the professional board members protested to the priest who had worked with Mother Theresa all those years and had organised the governing board, as Mother Theresa walked out "Father, all the 30 years of your work will be lost", to which he replied "And it took me these 30 years to realise that Mother is correct."