A decade ago, I spent a summer clapping and dancing with an energetic group of girls known as the “Butterfly Group”—the most challenging residents of Shanti Dan Home for girls with physical and mental disabilities in Kolkata, India.
Danielle Rose—a musician and fellow Notre Dame grad—had given a few albums to the Missionaries of Charity who ran Shanti Dan. I played those CDs on repeat—through the giggles of playtime and the sometimes face-scratching of temper-tantrums. One chorus became something of a mantra: “You have helped me learn to see, that love is strong when I am weak.”
On Mother Teresa’s tombstone, each day, a Missionary of Charity spells out Mother’s sayings in bright orange carnations. “I thirst,” “Love until it hurts,” or, my favorite: “Possessing nothing, only Jesus.”
I felt both privileged and weak that summer. I was rich, sitting among people who possessed nothing. There are no glossy magazine profiles about them. They won’t win Nobel Prizes. There are no awards banquets in their honor. They are the last in this world. But they are first in the Kingdom. They are the weak, and love is strong in them.
We have so many possessions—intellect, talents, social capital, achievements—that distract us from that love. I think of my homeless friends who give away food, cardboard, blankets, and love with God-like generosity. I think of the Butterfly Group. They possess nothing, only Jesus. They can fit through the eye of a needle.

Renée Darline Roden

Renée Darline Roden is a writer and playwright in Chicago. She holds degrees in theology from the University of Notre Dame and in journalism from Columbia University.