40 days with Mother Teresa
We have been created to love and be loved, and God has become man to make it possible for us to love as he loved us. He makes himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the sick one, the one in prison, the lonely one, the unwanted one... He is hungry for our love.
Mother Teresa
Father Langford’s reflections take us into the heart of Mother Teresa’s spirituality. Based on his close relationship with Mother and his own contemplation and teaching on this theme, these meditations help us encounter God more in our thirst for Him and His thirst for us.
Edward P. Sri, S.T.D.
Vice President for Formation
Fellowship of Catholic University Students
In 2008, I traveled to Ethiopia for Catholic Relief Services and visited the large, bustling orphanage of the Missionaries of Charity, which served thousands of people of all ages each day. When I asked about the source of the sisters’ energy for all of this good work, I was led into a primitive chapel with a tabernacle and the words “I thirst,” over the Blessed Sacrament. The book, I Thirst: 40 Days with Mother Teresa, written by a priest who worked with Mother Teresa, provides 40 day portions of the rich spirituality of Saint Teresa of Calcutta. I Thirst communicates well Jesus’ desire or thirst to love us deeply and our inner thirst for His presence in our lives. I strongly encourage its use during Lent or any other time of the year.
Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D.
Archbishop of Louisville
Ironically, in a world supposedly overflowing with self-esteem, many, many people cannot believe that "God thirsts" for them. This little book makes a convincing scriptural case that it is true! And moves us to love God, ourselves, and others better because of it. It is a perfect gem of spiritual reading.
Helen M. Alvaré, Professor of Law
The Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
Fr. Langford was confessor and retreat master for Mother Teresa’s religious sisters, as well as her confidante, in a privileged position to know the secrets Jesus had confided to her. Thus to have in this book, I Thirst, Fr. Langford’s retreat notes on Mother’s understanding of Jesus’ cry from the cross, is to have a priceless treasure. The untold riches of Mother Teresa’s heart – which are nothing but the untold riches of Christ’s own Heart – are here before us in these pages.
Suzie Andres, author of Homeschooling with Gentleness, and A Little Way of Homeschooling (2004)
If you thirst for the living water of God, follow the wisdom of Mother Teresa and she will surely lead you to the source.
Dan Burke, President of EWTN News and the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation
As is well known, St. Teresa of Calcutta’s encounter with Jesus' cry "I thirst" from the Cross inspired her with a supernatural grace that carried her for the next 50 years through the darkness of spiritual desolation, countless trials and sufferings, the enormous labor of establishing 5 branches of a worldwide religious order, and a massive correspondence with people around the world who wrote her for encouragement, prayers and counsel.
Less well known, however, is the secret of exactly what this cry of Jesus meant for her, and how those two simple words, heard in 1947, encapsulated the whole itinerary of her life that followed. The words revealed to her a mystery which she kept hidden away in her heart for decades, until Pope St. John Paul II spoke of them in a homily in 1993. Inspired by this as if by a prompting of the Holy Spirit, she began to speak of her encounter more freely. She wrote to her sisters in that same year with a special urgency: the Pope’s homily was “a sign for Mother, that time has come for me to speak openly of gift God gave Sept. 10th – to explain fully as I can what means for me the thirst of Jesus.” She continued, “Why does Jesus say ‘I thirst’? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words – if you remember anything from Mother’s letter, remember this – ‘I thirst’ is something much deeper than just Jesus saying ‘I love you.’”
In the midst of the challenge of “explaining in words,” Fr. Joseph Langford, the spiritual son with whom she founded the M.C. Fathers, played a unique part in helping the saint articulate the meaning of her experience for her sisters. He thus also became a privileged recipient and articulator of her spiritual experience for the M.C. family.
It was this unique role which helped him author his “’I Thirst’ Retreat” which he used to explain to Mother’s worldwide congregation the meaning of the charism she received – “to satiate the infinite thirst of Jesus on the Cross for love and for souls.” Fr. Langford well synthesizes – as much as such a thing is possible – how Mother Teresa understood and explained the mystery of Jesus’ thirst on the Cross. This book of meditations, adapted from Fr. Langford’s retreat, is thus a unique and faithful window into the soul of this great saint, and into the secret which made her the saint she became.
Fr. Daniel Jones
Associate Professor of Theology
Sacred Heart Major Seminary