Spiritual Connections

When I was young and living in the Boston area, we went to a religious convention at the Celtics basketball arena where Cardinal Law celebrated Mass. Amongst the many religious and lay people who attended were some of the Missionaries of Charity. The sisters had a booth where you could sign up to become a Sick and Suffering Coworker of the MOCs. So my mom signed me up and the MOCs assigned me the name of one of their Sisters to pray for and then that Sister would do the same for me. "What does it mean to be a Sick and Suffering Coworker?" you ask. In a book of Mother Teresa's writings Come Be My Light Mother talks about being a second self to a sister where a handicapped or ill person prays and offers up his or her sufferings for a MOC and the MOC does the same in return for the handicapped person. By each offering up their sufferings and praying for the other, they are united to each other in Christ. So, the Sister and I can get to know each other by corresponding through letters and then we become "second selves" to each other. I was a "second self" to one of the MOCs in the 1980s who was from Albania or one of the Communists countries and I lost track of her when she went home once and got stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Our communication was cut off. It was years that I had no communication with this Sister and I'm sorry to say, I have forgotten her name. In the fall and winter I remembered and was praying to Mother Teresa and it ocurred to me that I re-establish myself as a Sick and Suffering Coworker of the MOCs. So I did. It was very providential to learn the name of the Sister whom I was assigned to because this particular nun had been corresponding with my sister just a year before during the pregnancy, birth and death of her youngest child. It was a baby girl and she was a Trisomy 18 living only 45 days after she was born. This nun had been writing to my sister frequently and she had all of the MOCs praying to Mother Teresa for this baby. My sister told me this and so it was really cool when I learned that the MOCs' regional director in my area assigned me to her. The regional director just randomly picks a nun (presumably one who doesn't already have a second self) so neither the Sister nor me knows who we will get. So, it is up to God to direct us to each other.