"I met Jesus on the Road" - Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was on her way to New Delhi. She was on a two and a half hour drive to meet the Holy Father Pope John Paul II during his 1986 visit to India. The driver nervously broke the silence. "Mother, today you will encounter a living saint, a truly holy man... Are you excited?"

"I am most grateful to God for the opportunity any time I can be closer to Jesus." 

As she said this she spotted a person with leprosy sitting alone on the side of the road. 

She asked the driver to pull over. When he asked why she responded, "We cannot hurry past Jesus on our way to see a Pope ".

She stepped out of the vehicle, and spent a long time caring for and encouraging the individual. 

When she finally arrived late and an Indian cardinal gently reminded her that she had kept the Vicar of Christ waiting, she calmly replied, "Yes, I know, but I met Jesus on the road." 

Mother Teresa wasn't being disrespectful to the Holy Father. In fact she later said his visit to her charity home "the happiest day of my life". 

He would have to understand that her whole spirituality was built on the single line from the Gospel of Matthew, “What you did for the least of these you did it to me.”

What made her a saint is that she was willing to stop and recognize Jesus in the suffering outcast before recognizing him in his saintly pope.

Later the leper was asked by the locals, "What was it like to meet a living saint?" He responded, "It was the happiest day of my life". 

Christ was present in three ways that day—in the suffering man who needed mercy, in the Pope as shepherd of the Church, and in Mother Teresa herself as a member of Christ’s Body carrying his love to another.

Saint Mother Teresa, Saint John Paul II and the Anonymous Leper saint on the road... Pray for us.