“Put Your Love Into Living Action”: Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC, on Mother Teresa, Charity, and Hope

The poverty of being unloved

Mother Teresa became known throughout the world for serving people living in extreme material poverty. But as the Missionaries of Charity expanded beyond India, Fr. Brian recalled, she became increasingly conscious of forms of poverty that could be less visible.

“The first years, the emphasis of the sisters was on the material service because in India, Calcutta and other countries, the great need was material — food, shelter, those things,” he explained. “But then, when the sisters and she started going out, she realized, and she would say, ‘The greatest poverty in the world today is to be unloved, unwanted, uncared for.’” 

That insight may be even more recognizable today.

Fr. Brian spoke about widespread loneliness, broken families, insecurity, and young people and adults who feel lost or uncertain about the direction of their lives.

“Far more widespread is this being unloved, unwanted, insecure, broken families — teenagers and adults kind of lost, not knowing what direction to take,” he said. 

For Mother Teresa, the response was not simply to speak about loneliness but to encounter the lonely person directly. Her spirituality demanded presence: to recognize another person, give that person attention, and see beyond circumstances or appearances to the dignity of a brother or sister.

It is perhaps one reason her example still resonates in societies whose forms of poverty may look very different from those she first encountered in Kolkata (Mother Teresa became known throughout the world for her work among people living in extreme poverty in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. The city officially adopted the English name Kolkata in 2001, reflecting more closely its Bengali pronunciation).

Ukraine: suffering does not have the final word

For Ukrainians, the question of charity is inseparable from the reality of war, displacement, grief and loss.

Asked what Mother Teresa’s example can teach those suffering through war, Fr. Brian did not offer an easy explanation for suffering. Instead, he emphasized perseverance in faith while acknowledging just how difficult that can be.

“The war is extremely difficult,” he said. “Not to lose faith, and keep the faith, and perseverance and trust. That’s one of the biggest questions: Why does God allow all this suffering? … But don’t give up hope. Somehow to find God even in the suffering, difficult as that is.” 

He also stressed that Christian solidarity takes different forms. Some people can offer financial or humanitarian assistance. Others can serve directly. All can pray — and prayer, he insisted, should never be dismissed as though it were somehow less real than practical assistance.

In speaking about the response of Christians to Ukrainian suffering, Fr. Brian recalled a Knights of Columbus initiative that brought widows and children who had lost husbands and fathers on pilgrimage to Poland. Beyond material assistance, he saw in it an example of people accompanying others spiritually and humanly in their grief.

“That’s something very concrete, practical,” he said. “They took them, they prayed, they went to these different places, and so they were kind of renewed in their faith. … That’s when that solidarity comes in with the suffering.” 

There is no simple theological formula that can make the deaths of innocent people understandable, he acknowledged.

“Can we figure it out why God allows these things? No,” Fr. Brian said.

Yet Christian hope insists that evil does not possess the final word.

“Even in the worst situation, I’d say love or charity always has the last word,” he said. “Good Friday is not the last word. Resurrection Sunday is the last word. But we have to go through Good Friday to get to Resurrection Sunday. Some people suffer more than others. How that all works, we don’t know. We can’t understand everything. We just have to believe that somehow that’s true — but it’s very difficult.” 

It is a hope that does not deny Good Friday, but refuses to believe that the Cross is the end of the story.

Who Mother Teresa truly was

Fr. Brian spent many years working closely with the material connected with Mother Teresa’s life and cause for canonization. Asked what people still find surprising about her, he pointed first to the spiritual “darkness” revealed through her private writings.

Many assumed that a woman whose life appeared so completely united to God must also have continually felt that closeness.

The reality was very different.

“She was not only feeling God absent, but feeling unloved,” Fr. Brian explained. “That’s why she understood the poverty of today, because that’s what she herself experienced — being unloved, unwanted and uncared for. Experienced the feeling, not in reality. So the paradox is that she was so closely united with Jesus that He could share with her His most extreme suffering, which was interior.” 

At the same time, people are often surprised by how ordinary Mother Teresa was in daily life.

Fr. Brian remembered explaining in a television interview that Mother Teresa lived ordinary community life with the sisters and even washed dishes.

The interviewer found this difficult to reconcile with the monumental public image of her.

Fr. Brian’s response captures something essential about her, “She lived with the sisters and she washed the dishes and things. They said, ‘You’re telling us these things, and we have this image of Mother — she’s this big, grand figure.’ Well, I mean, she was a big figure by doing little things, if you want to say it that way.” 

Perhaps that is precisely why her example remains accessible. Her holiness did not depend on every action being extraordinary. It depended on the love with which ordinary things were done.

A message for the young — and for the Archeparchy

When asked what one lesson from Mother Teresa he hopes every young person would embrace, Fr. Brian returned to something even more fundamental than service: a personal relationship with Christ.

“Try to have that personal friendship with Jesus, that personal connection,” he said. “Especially with this poverty of loneliness and feeling unwanted, try to make that personal connection, relationship — an encounter with the Lord. But that should be real, and that comes especially with prayer. And then, as Mother liked this expression, put your love into living action.” 

For Fr. Brian, participation in the Divine Liturgy and reception of Holy Communion should not remain isolated religious acts. A genuine encounter with Christ necessarily creates a movement outward toward another person.

Drawing on what St. John Paul II called the “law of the gift,” he explained, “If I’m focused just on me, I will never be happy. But if I’m focused on loving God and loving neighbor, then the fruit of that is happiness. Everyone has suffering. You can’t escape. No one escapes suffering. The question is: What do you do with it? How do you handle it? What meaning do you give it?” 

After years of knowing Mother Teresa, studying her writings and preserving her legacy, what does Fr. Brian most want people to remember about who she truly was?

His answer was immediate. “One very important thing to take away from her is that she was a woman — I like to say, a woman passionately in love with Jesus — and that explains all the rest,” he said. “She understood Jesus’ passionate love for her, and that’s why she liked ‘I thirst,’ the image of thirst, because that is an intense thing. And so she wanted to thirst for Him back. Jesus’ love is very great and intense and infinite. And then on our side, to love as much as we can, intensely, personally, and put that love into living action by doing the little things with great love.” 

Finally, asked what message he would offer to the faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia on the International Day of Charity, Fr. Brian returned to the heart of everything he had said.

“Meet Jesus, encounter, live with living faith — not just routine,” he said. “Meet Jesus, make it living, and get involved, some community, and serve. Get out of yourself. There will be suffering — everyone has suffering — but focus outward. And that, again, begins in your own family where you are. And then you can branch out according to what you can do.” 

It is a message entirely consistent with the life Mother Teresa lived: begin with Christ, recognize Him in the person before you, and allow that love to take concrete form.

For some, that may mean feeding the hungry or caring for those who have nowhere else to go. For others, it may mean patience with a family member, attention to a lonely person, prayer for someone who is suffering, or an ordinary task quietly performed out of love.

The action itself may be small.

But, as Mother Teresa taught and Fr. Brian continues to remind us, what matters is the love with which it is done.

^{By Oksana Loziak}

^{Photos from the archives of Fr. Brian and the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia}