Sp iritual healing touch MaryAnn Finchf insp ired by Mother Teresaf reaches out to the unwanted By Evelyn Zappia m nside the envelope from Calcutta was the response to her letter.
She had written to Mother Teresa asking to volunteer at India 's I Kaligh at Home for the Dying. The answer was, "Don 't come." She tore the letter in little pieces, and said to herself , "I' m going. " Not even Mother Teresa could stop the "spiritu al force " guiding her to a journey she describes as "the event in my life that will continue to change me unti l the moment I die. "
Daughter of Chanty Sister Kathleen To* massages the back of a f rail elderly lady livingin a Tenderloin hotel. The woman is one of thousands who are comf orted by the staff of interns of the Care Through Touch Institute.
The Ma family recalls f light from China ~ Page 3 ~
Five months later, in 1989, Mary Ann Finch stood nervously among the many volunteers waiting to be greeted by Mother Teresa, before entering the enormous temple in Calcutta that was now a home for the dying. She told herself "to calm down. " After all, the letter telling her "not to come to India " was not " actually written by Mother Teresa and the Order must receive hundreds of requests just like hers." She extended her hand to the founder of the Missionaries of Charity and introduced herself. Mother Teresa responded immediately, "You were told not to come. " After a brief anxious moment, Ms. Finch responded firmly, "Well , I came anyway." The slender woman from California entered the home for the dying with admittedly, "a smug attitude. " She was an adj unct professor of Berkeley 's Graduate Theological Union who had received accolades nationwide for her teaching methods in massage therapy. She was quite certain "she would be of great benefit to Mother Teresa's work. " But nothing prepared her for the "sights, smells, and sounds " of the hundreds of people lying on cots, all sinking toward death. Locked in panic, she asked herself , "My God, what can I do here?" Ms. Finch worked long hours cleaning the wounds of lepers, comforting the frail , massaging the limbs of the suffering, and continuously preparing bodies for burial. "I learned to take such beautiful care of the dead, " said Ms. Finch . The preparation of the bodies was a ritual that never altered. She washed the body, covered it in oil, "as if anointing it" and sprinkled powder over it. After she wrapped the body in a white cloth, she "carried it" to an "old^ickety elevator " and slid the body on a shelf near a sign that read, "I' m on my way to heaven." Every day she secretly observed Mother Teresa, "wanting to leam anything" she could from her. "I became her shadow," Ms. Finch said. "I watched her go from cot to cot and touch everyone she encountered. Her simple act of touching proved to be reaching deep into each person 's soul. It was done with such utter respect for the human person. She was touching the person with her whole being. From then on, my credential as a massage therapist was . shattered. " CARE THROUGH TOUCH, page 10
Bishop Gregoiy wins high Church post ~ Page 5 ~
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