by Bishop James Conley
The passage from St. Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25, was a very pivotal message for St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) in her life and in her ministry to the “poorest of the poor.” This passage, often referred to as the Judgment of the Nations, presents to us the familiar story of the separation of the sheep from the goats at the last judgment.
For Mother Teresa, it provided her with the gospel mandate to see the face of Jesus in the “distressing disguise of the poor.” The key line here is this: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” But how do we see the face of Jesus in the “distressing disguise of the poor?” It seems counterintuitive – all we see is misery and suffering.
At the end of October, I was privileged to go on mission to Mexico City with the Hope of the Poor. Three of my young priests accompanied me, along with 30 of the lay faithful, of all ages. This was the sixth diocesan mission trip for the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln. Craig Johring and Danny Leger, both Nebraskans, founded the Hope of the Poor apostolate in 2013. Craig is a convert to the Catholic faith and spent most of his life as a Protestant evangelist with the organization Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the models for the Catholic organization FOCUS (Fellowship of the Catholic University Students). Danny is also a musician, songwriter and recording artist, and is well known in the musical world. He is married and has five children.
A little over 10 years ago, after leading thousands of college students on mission to the poor on the streets of Mexico City, and to the homeless indigenous people of eastern Alaska, Craig had a dramatic conversion to the Catholic faith through the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. At that point, he concentrated his missionary apostolate on Jesus in the Eucharist and the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At the same time, he continued his lifelong mission to bring the light of Christ into the darkest mission fields of our world.
Father Benjamin Holdren—currently serving the diocese at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward—originally went on mission with Hope of the Poor in 2021. He traveled with a group from St. Mary Parish in David City, including Father Carson Kain, assistant pastor at St. Mary. Father Jay Buhman, then the pastor at St. Mary Parish, had set up these missions through his connection with Craig during his time with FOCUS (Father Buhman was the national chaplain of FOCUS for three years).
Shortly after Father Holdren returned, he came to a meeting at my house to brainstorm ideas for the Eucharistic Revival, and he was relating his recent experience with Hope of the Poor. He explained to me how each morning, those on mission began with a holy hour at the foot of the tilma of St. Juan Diego at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, or on Tepeyac Hill. The rest of the morning was spent in Eucharistic Adoration, praying and asking Jesus to prepare the group to serve the poor of Mexico City on the afternoon missions.
This seemed like a wonderful opportunity to inspire devotion to the Eucharist across our diocese, by inviting the lay faithful to experience a love of the Eucharist and the poor, under the protection of Our Blessed Mother. Since then, there have been six diocesan missions, and many more planned.
Craig was also captivated by the life of Mother Teresa and her work with the “poorest of poor.” Following the example of Mother Teresa, the mission was focused on seeking to alleviate the poverty of being unloved. Craig was given an insight into her understanding of the link between the Holy Eucharist—love made visible—and serving the poor.
People would often ask Mother Teresa why she loved the poor so much, and what motivated her heart to serve the poor in such radical ways. In response, she liked to grasp their hands and say: “you-did-it -to-me,” using her five fingers to indicate the five words from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25. In Mother Teresa’s mind, you can count the whole Gospel on just five fingers.
Mother Teresa was alluding, of course, to Matthew 25 where Jesus teaches about the final judgment. Our Lord explains that at the end of time he will judge people by their deeds of mercy. To the kind and giving, he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father… For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and clothed me, in prison and you visited me.”
Perplexed by his words, his interlocutors asked him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirst and give you a drink?” Jesus replied, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did it for me.”
For Mother Teresa, this passage was not just a pious metaphor. It was true. It described the reality that in every homeless person, every drug addict, every prostitute, every orphan – she saw the face of Jesus. This was the key to her infectious joy and her boundless compassion for the poorest of the poor. Deep in her bones, Mother Teresa knew that by serving others, she was serving Jesus.
But how does one maintain this energy and continue this ardent desire to serve the poor, particularly in the desperate and desolated places in our world? Like all Christians, Mother Teresa found her strength and sustenance through prayer, particularly through Eucharistic adoration.
For Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, seeing Jesus in the Eucharist enabled them to see His face in the “distressing disguise of the poor.” In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus becomes present under the form of ordinary bread and wine. When the priest says the words of consecration, Christ becomes substantially present, even though he’s not evident to our senses. Our faith helps us transcend sensory experience to spot the divine image in its most ordinary form. Do you see the connection?
Mother Teresa knew how crucial this was. Seeing Christ in the Holy Eucharist enabled her to see Him in the streets. “If we recognize Jesus under the appearance of bread,” she would explain, “we will have no difficulty recognizing him in the disguise of the suffering poor.” This is why Mother Teresa could say, “I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a day.” Whether in the chapel or in the slums, in the pew or the city dump, the orphanage or the hospital, she recognized the Lord everywhere she went, because she trained herself each morning at the altar.
The Missionaries of Charity typically make three holy hours a day before the Eucharist. They used to only make two holy hours, but when Mother Teresa’s work expanded and she established houses all over the world, she saw the need to increase the time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
This is also the method of Hope of the Poor. During the five-day mission trip to Mexico City, we spent most of our time before the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel of the convent where we stayed and before the tilma of St. Juan Diego in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe – the basilica is a five-minute walk from the convent. The rest of time we spent with the poor in the streets, by visiting a 200-person orphanage of adults with severe disabilities, and in the city dump, where there are numerous communities of homeless who recycle trash for a living. We even celebrated Holy Mass in a beautiful chapel on the middle of the dump.
When working with the poor on the streets, we were trying to help them overcome crippling psychological conditions, combat drug addiction and the scourge of being trafficked.
This is why I encouraged Father Holdren to organize these mission trips as part of the Eucharistic Revival. Hope of the Poor, aided by an extraordinary and holy man, Ramiro Gomez, a native of Mexico City and former high government official who served on the staff of the former-president of Mexico, is able to take the poor off the streets, many of whom are young women and children who are caught up in drug addiction and the billion-dollar human trafficking trade, and insert them into the security of small parish communities in the Archdiocese of Mexico City.
With the help of local pastors and parish communities, they are then catechized and instructed in the faith, and eventually initiated into the full sacramental life of the Church. They are also surrounded by former drug addicts and prostitutes who also came off the streets, and who now serve as mentors and accountability partners, so that the participants do not fall back into their old ways.
One of the projects we participated in was a Walmart shopping spree where we outfitted a whole apartment for two young mothers (19 and 21 years old), with their babies. The women had been on the streets since they were 9 and 11. The apartment (pictured at below) will give them a new start and a new hope in life.
I encourage everyone to sign up with Hope of the Poor. There are spots still open in January and next October. Contact Father Holdren for more information by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Please consider acting on those five words from the gospel that motivated Mother Teresa to act. Hopefully, they will do the same for you: “A mi me lo hiciste – you did it to me.”
