Following in the saint's footsteps

The destitute and the diseased still gather outside Mother Teresa's clinics in Kolkata, the sprawling city in eastern India, where the ethnic Albanian nun - known simply as Mother - dedicated her life to helping the poorest of the poor.

Mother Teresa died 10 years ago on August 5, and many of those who rely on her order, the Missionaries of Charity, never met the tiny, frail woman who became a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a global icon of selflessness and devotion.

But they love her just the same and her name, and her legacy, still provide inspiration, comfort and care, said volunteers as well as those who receive food, shelter, medicine, comfort and more from her group.

Gopal Das, 50, was living on the streets with a malignant stomach tumour, and Ninandath had a festering leg wound when Missionaries of Charity sisters found them. "We would have been dead if the sisters had not brought us here," said Das.

He was staying at Nirmal Hriday, or "Pure Heart", the first of the many clinics that Mother Teresa opened in Kolkata's ramshackle neighbourhoods during her nearly seven decades in India.

Moon Moon Mondal, 17, was raised there because her parents couldn't afford to keep her at home. She thanks the nuns for taking care of her when no one else would and, just as importantly, for giving her an education and training so she could find a job and look after herself. She returns most days to visit her brother and sister, who still live at the centre, and to see the nuns.

Some were concerned that the order would flounder without Mother Teresa's charisma and leadership. But people both inside and outside the group say the Missionaries of Charity has maintained its standards.

The group has "continued to function in the same spirit and work with the same sincerity among the poor and unprivileged", said Dr Ruma Chatterjee of the Society for the Visually Handicapped, a nonprofit group that works with Mother Teresa's organisation.

But Mother Teresa was not loved by all. She was criticised for taking donations from Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier and disgraced US financier Charles Keating.

Detractors opposed her stance against birth-control use in slums. Still, she remains popular in Kolkata, especially among the poor. Krishna Das was one of the countless people rescued by Mother Teresa 30 years ago.

Today, he works with the volunteers in Nirmal Hriday to help the destitute. "I have seen the sisters during Mother's time and now," Das said. "This centre is serving the same way and providing help to the poor with the same zeal."

Sister Nirmala, a Hindu-born convert to Roman Catholicism, now oversees the order. She hasn't become a household name like Mother Teresa, but she never expected to be.

"My way of coping with the challenge is simple - just to be myself," she said. "I didn't fill Mother's shoes, that is impossible. I followed the footsteps left by the Mother."

Several ceremonies are planned today in Kolkata, including candlelight vigils in the neighbourhoods where she worked, and a mass to be conducted by the Archbishop of Kolkata. There will be a multifaith ceremony at Mother House.

Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 after the Vatican said an Indian woman's prayers to the nun rid her of an incurable tumour, and millions of Catholics have called for her to be elevated to sainthood, a process fast-tracked by the late Pope John Paul II.

Under Catholic tradition, an additional miracle attributable to her must be verified for her to become a saint. While those who worked with her feel confident she will achieve sainthood, they're not worried about when she will be recognised. "In the heart of people," said Sister Nirmala, "Mother is always a saint."

Call from god to serve the poor

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje in 1910.

The Albanian-born nun came to Kolkata in 1929 as Sister Teresa after she said she heard a call from god to serve the poorest of the poor. She set up schools for street children and medical clinics for slum-dwellers.

In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, her own order. The group is still housed in the same four-storey building that Kolkata residents know as Mother House.

AP