Interview with Cardinal Angelo Comastri

by Graziella Fons

«I met a Saint». is the title of the book on Mother Teresa of Calcutta written by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the Pope's vicar general for the Vatican City, and published in recent days by Edizioni San Paolo. In the volume the cardinal recounts his many encounters with the future Saint and offers the reader a series of stories, writings and prayers about Mother Teresa.

Angelo Comastri, always attentive to the needs of the poor and prisoners, had an intense acquaintance with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Daughters of Charity nuns and authentic mother of the poor, constantly reaching out in a generous, sensitive and caring embrace of the least of the earth, to the inhabitants of the physical and existential peripheries of the world, especially in the moments of extreme loneliness that the sick and destitute experienced at the point of death, forced to leave their lives on the sidelines, among waste, in physical and moral degradation and abandonment. We asked Cardinal Comastri for a precious contribution regarding his relationship with the Saint of Calcutta. Your Eminence, what did your meeting with Mother Teresa mean for you? «I believe that meeting Mother Teresa of Calcutta was a great gift from the Lord.
I confess that every time I met her she put a great serenity in my heart. I almost felt like I was experiencing the presence of God in her soul. I was once enchanted by a journalist's definition about Mother Teresa who said this: "Mother Teresa is an open window and God looked out of this window and smiled at the world." For my part, I fully agree with her because every time I met her I almost had the physical sensation of bringing the Lord closer, of feeling the Lord who was evidently in her soul. When the last time I said goodbye to her - it was May 22, 1997 in the house on Via Casilina - she was already ill, it was clear that she had very little strength. On that occasion I confided to her my suffering because my mother had died a few days ago. I told her: “Mother, mother left me.”
And she, I still remember, said to me: “Your mother is in heaven. Now, she is closer to you than before,” and she added, “I too will go to heaven. She will always be close to you." These words are of extraordinary consolation to me, because Mother Teresa, when she promised something, she did it." With the end of her earthly journey and her canonization, can it be said that Mother Teresa now truly and fully belongs to all humanity? "There is no doubt. John Paul II said: “The saints in heaven do not need applause. The saints only ask us to follow them." And Mother Teresa never tires of telling us: "Be holy". I remember when she gave me some little pictures: she always wrote on them: “Be holy”. So she tells us the same thing again, because the only thing she matters is holiness. To use her words: “The only suitcase we will carry from there is the suitcase of charity”. I remember that when she said these words to me, she added: "While you still have time, fill it, because it is the only suitcase you will take with you."

At the end of each chapter of her book we find the prayers that the Saint used to recite every day. What, in your opinion, was the role of prayer and spiritual meditation in a mission strongly oriented towards charitable action like that of Mother Teresa? «We could say that prayer is the secret of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. When Pérez de Cuéllar (then Secretary General of the United Nations) introduced her to the UN with somewhat high-sounding words, saying: “I present to you the most powerful woman on Earth. She is truly the United Nations because in her heart there are the poor of the whole world", the Mother replied: "I am just a nun who prays", and added "by praying, Jesus puts his love in my heart. I'm going to bring it to the poor all over the world, to the poor I meet." She then had the courage to say: "Pray too and you will notice the poor people next to you, perhaps on the landing of your own house".
Inspired by the message of Christ, Mother Teresa used the same language with the least but also with the great of the earth, with whom she was not afraid to speak. Do you remember your particular relationship with Princess Diana? "Yes. The mother welcomed Princess Diana with such affection, but not so much because she was a princess, but because she was a daughter of God. And when there was some caution presented to the Mother regarding Diana, she said: “I have never received the Princess Diana: I always received the unhappy Diana."
This is very nice. She knew how to bend over the suffering of everyone, princes or non-princes, poor or not poor because they were all children of God, as it must be for everyone." Is there a moment that you remember more than any other among the many meetings with Mother Teresa? «Every meeting was beautiful; every meeting was rich. But the first meeting is the one I remember in an extraordinary way, especially when I said to the Mother: "I expected her to ask me how much charity you do..." And I remember her replying to me: "And do you think I could give charity? Could I go to the poor if I didn't pray? She is praying that Jesus puts love in my heart. I'm going to take it to the poor I meet on my journey,” and she added: “Remember well – moving your finger – that without God we are too poor to be able to help the poor”».
The Saint of Calcutta was canonized in the year of the Jubilee of Mercy by Pope Francis, who made mercy one of the key concepts of his pontificate. In his opinion, what did the work of mercy represent for Mother Teresa? With what spirit did she live it? «When a journalist tried to photograph the mother's eyes - I was present - we asked: “Why does she insist? She is annoying the Mother,” and the journalist: “I want to photograph her eyes: I have never seen such happy eyes. I would like, in some way, to grasp the secret of the joy of these eyes." I remember that the nun who was next to her translated into English for Mother. The Mother replied: “The secret is so simple: my eyes are happy because my hands dry so many tears. Do the same: you have happy eyes like mine."