A Pencil In God's Hand

During the years that she served the poor, Saint Teresa of Calcutta become an icon of radical Christian discipleship. Though people constantly praised her for her work, she always sought to draw attention away from herself toward Jesus. Once, when a reporter asked her to describe her ministry, she told him that she was merely a pencil in the hand of God.

Later, in a book titled,  The Joy of Loving: A Guide To Daily Living, Saint Teresa expanded her answer: “I am a little pencil in God's hands. He does the thinking. He does the writing. He does everything and sometimes it is really hard because it is a broken pencil and He has to sharpen it a little more.”

In everything she did, she wanted it to be clear that it was God’s work and no one else’s. Ultimately, it was God who deserved all the credit and not her.

Saint Teresa’s attitude is a perfect reflection of Mary’s attitude in today’s gospel.

When the angel reveals to her that she will be the mother of Jesus, Mary simply replies: “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

Note that Gabriel does not ask Mary to do anything. God is the one who has chosen her. God will be the one to see to it that she conceives a child. And God will be the one to make her child great. Mary simply needs to say “yes” and to allow God to do His work through her. As Saint Teresa of Calcutta would put it, Mary simply needs to be the pencil with which God writes down His great plan of salvation.

When we talk about religion, we often fall into the trap of describing it as something that we do. We observe rules, go to Church, teach catechism, live an upright life and so on. To some extent, all that activity is important. However, Christianity is not primarily about what we do but what God does in and through us.

It all begins with our very existence. None of us chose to be born. Our life is a free gift from God. And none of us figured out for ourselves that God loved us enough to send Jesus to die for our sins and rise again to give us the promise of everlasting life. Rather, we heard the good news through the preaching of the Church which Jesus established. And even our belief in the gospel is a gift of grace. It is through faith,  which is a free gift of God’s love, that we can believe in Jesus and entrust our lives to Him.

Ultimately, like Mary and like Saint Teresa of Calcutta, we must see ourselves merely as pencils in His hand, allowing Him to write out His saving plan through us.

That does not mean that we sit around and wait for God to move us as if we were puppets. We continue to live our daily lives just as they are. We continue to dream, to strive, to imagine, to yearn. However, all the while we are open to what God wants to do through us.

For some of us, it will mean doing some great work for the Lord as Saint Teresa did in Calcutta. However, God will work through most of us in small and hidden ways. It may be by going out of our way to give someone a ride to the doctor. It may be by volunteering at a soup kitchen once a week. Simply by responding in a kind and loving manner to everyone God puts in our path, we will be showing forth the face of Christ and doing great good.

As Saint Teresa said, we are broken pencils that need to be sharpened every now and then. Often, we are afraid of what God might ask of us. Or we think that our plan is better than God’s plan.

That is where prayer comes in. Through prayer, we learn to see the world as God sees it. By putting ourselves in His presence every day, we begin to recognize the face of God in every person we meet, especially the needy. By getting into the habit of making daily sacrifices,  we train ourselves to put aside our own interests to serve the needs of others. And by receiving the Sacraments of Confession and Communion frequently, we find the strength to give without counting the cost.

God chooses those who are small in the eyes of the world to do His great work. This is certainly true of Mary who was just a young girl from a backwater town. It is also true of many of the saints, including Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who changed the world by simply allowing God to work through them.

None of us, then, is too small or insignificant to have God use us to do great things. If anything, we are probably not small and insignificant enough. If we want to be pencils in His hands, we need to abandon ourselves to Him daily in prayer asking for the strength to forget ourselves so that we can serve others.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate the great feast of Christmas. Through Jesus Christ, born of Mary, God will change human history forever. To this day, it is God who is guiding the course of events leading to the consummation of His great plan of salvation. We want to contribute to that plan - like Mary and Saint Teresa of Calcutta - by allowing Him to use us in whatever way He sees fit. Then we will see Him do great things in and through us for nothing is impossible with God.