There are critics in the Church, and not a few religious women and men, who say that Mother Teresa personified a “pre-Vatican Council” view of faith and did not address systemic evils. They criticize her and her followers for their relentless condemnation of abortion. Some have said in Mother Teresa there was no element of prophetic criticism in her teachings and lifestyle.

Instead of acting like many and applying for government grants to create programs to eliminate poverty, Mother Teresa and her sisters moved into neighbourhoods and befriended people. Their houses often became oases of hope and peace, like the ones in Canada, especially the convent in Toronto. When Mother Teresa speaks of “sharing poverty” she defies the logic of institutions that prefer agendas for the poor, not communion with individual poor people. Agents and instruments of communion are often called irrelevant by the world.

Though she left this world 13 years ago, this tiny nun made the news big time several years ago with the publication of her letters. Many journalists got the story all wrong with their sensational headlines: “Mother Teresa’s secret life: crisis and darkness,” or “Calcutta’s saint was an atheist.” These people seem unaware that those who prepared Mother’s beatification in 2003 cited the letters as proof of her exceptional faith and not the absence of it.

Mother Teresa tells us in those deeply personal messages that she once felt God’s powerful presence and heard Jesus speak to her. Then God withdrew and Jesus was silent. What she experienced thereafter was faith devoid of any emotional consolation. In the end Mother Teresa had to rely on raw faith, hope and charity. These are the virtues of all Christians, not just the spiritual elite. She was one of us.

I met Mother Teresa several times while I was teaching her sisters in a slum neighbourhood on the outskirts of Rome. At the end of our first visit, she blessed my forehead before placing into my hands one of her famous business cards unlike any I had ever seen.

On one side were these words: “The fruit of silence is PRAYER. The fruit of prayer is FAITH. The fruit of faith is LOVE. The fruit of love is SERVICE. The fruit of service is PEACE. God bless you. — Mother Teresa.”

There was no e-mail address, phone number or web site. Mother didn’t need an address. And Blessed Teresa of Calcutta certainly doesn’t need contact information today. Everyone knows where she is and how to reach her.

(Rosica is Chief Executive Officer of the Salt + Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network.)