Jan 7, 2008 / 11:49 am
On January 4 Pope Benedict XVI visited a homeless shelter in Rome founded “20 years ago by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and currently operated by the congregation she founded, the Missionaries of Charity.”
The superior of the Dono di Maria shelter, Sister Mark Poustani, told Vatican Radio that the sisters were awaiting the Pope’s visit “with joy and gratitude”.
“We are a community of sisters and our first task is prayer,” Sister Poustani said. “At this time there are eight of us. We begin with prayer and at 8am we collect the fruit of that prayer, that is, the work with the poor.” “We seek not only to give food but also the Word to our guests, sharing it with them every day,” she added.
By 1970 Mother Teresa had already expressed a desire to open a shelter for the poor in Rome. “It was a great desire of hers. And the Holy Father (John Paul II), when he visited our home in Calcutta in 1986, shared this desire. The Dono di Maria shelter is the fruit of the encounter between these two desires, that of our mother and that of the Holy Father,” Sister Poustani stated. The shelter was opened on May 21, 1988, by Pope John Paul II.