The Words of the Gow Family

Mother Teresa

Haven Bradford Gow
January, 2003

Mother Teresa now is being considered by the Vatican for sainthood because of her tremendous works of faith, goodness and charity. Ironically, when Mother Teresa was alive, a prominent columnist castigated her, implying that she was a sexual pervert and arguing that her charitable work simply served to buttress the social, economic and political status quo.

Why the vicious attack on Mother Teresa's character? Because those who already have lost their purity naturally envy, hate, ridicule and persecute people with purity of heart, mind and soul who are trying to help young people remain pure too.

When Mother Teresa was alive, she fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless, comforted the sick, consoled the dying. Her charity and good deeds planted within others seeds of love from which love grows.

Mother Teresa possessed the kind of beauty that causes one to think of Christmas and of Easter and -- ultimately -- of God. It is not the kind of beauty celebrated by the Beautiful People of society who identify with wealth, popularity, social prestige and status symbols. Nor is it the beauty exhibited by Playboy and Penthouse models, television and movie idols and contestants in the Miss Universe pageants.

Rather, Mother Teresa possessed a moral and spiritual beauty -- reflected in her face, eyes and good deeds -- which far transcends mere physical beauty. Mother Teresa manifested the virtues of a genuinely liberated and beautiful person: faith, hope, courage, charity. It was Mother Teresa's religious faith and the beauty and goodness of her heart and soul that motivated her courageous opposition to abortion. Aboard, she insisted, is the killing of innocent unborn babies and denigrates the sacredness of sex, marriage, family and human life.

Mother Teresa observed: "The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is war against the child, the direct killing of an innocent child, murder by the mother herself; and if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, then how can we tell others not to kill one another?"

Mother Teresa also spoke out courageously for the sacredness of sex and marriage. As she noted during her Harvard University commencement address, the most beautiful gift that a young man can give a young lady, and a young lady a young man, is a virgin heart, a virgin soul. For, as Christ observed in the New Testament, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Certainly Mother Teresa was a living saint, and today she is a saint in heaven.

Mr. Gow is a TV and radio commentator and writer who teaches Religion to children at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Greenville, Miss.

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