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The man closest to me was on the brink of death, with festering stumps for limbs. His features were gnawed away by leprosy, and his watery eyes devoid of life.
He was just one of many lepers awaiting treatment outside a clinic run by the Missionary Brothers of Charity on the outskirts of Calcutta. But as I went to pass by him, something in him called to me. Or was it that I heard again Mother Teresa’s insistent voice saying: “Touch a leper with your compassion”? I found myself cupping his face in my hands as I had seen her do so often to all kinds of people.
There was nothing extraordinary about my gesture. What was extraordinary was the response it evoked in him. His ravaged body came to life. His face between my hands lit up, and all his companions on the bench beside him were reaching out to me, smiling with unaccountable joy. “In order to understand, you have to touch. To know the problem of poverty…
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