Mother Teresa: Messenger of God's Love

By Commodore Shemal FERNANDO

"Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart" - Mother Teresa.

The birth centenary of Mother Teresa, the frail, aged, wrinkled but radiant Roman Catholic Nun who strode the slums of Calcutta like a "Living Saint" fell on Thursday. She is most remembered for her humaneness and earned the appellation "Mother of Mercy". Mother Teresa, who cared and nursed millions of unwanted and forgotten people, will not only remain as the world's most famous nun but also as an embodiment of Christian love and charity.

Mother Teresa's capability to draw all people irrespective of religious adherence, to feel the pains of human miseries and her sheer grit in the face of insurmountable difficulties paved the way to serve mankind for almost half a century.

She died of a heart attack on September 5, 1997 at the ripe age of 87 years and the doctors say the illness was compounded by her hectic schedule of work. In an unprecedented departure from protocol, the Indian government honoured the Mother with a state funeral.

Birth and early life

Agnes Bojaxhiu, daughter of Nicolas and Rosa, sister of Agata and Lazarus or Mother Teresa as the world knows her today was born to Albanian parents at Skopje in Yugoslavia on August 26, 1910 and was baptised on the following day. From the early days of childhood Agnes seemed determined to utilize her God given talents for His greater glory. By the age of 12 she wanted to be a nun. When she was 18, she joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loreto because she knew they worked widely in India.

After a brief training in Dublin, where she learnt English, she proceeded to Ireland in 1928 to begin her novitiate. She arrived in Calcutta on January 6, 1929 and was sent to the novitiate of the Loreto nuns at Darjeeling at the foot of the Himalayas. She took her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in 1931 and changed her name to Teresa. She was sent to teach at St. Mary's High School and St. Teresa's School in Calcutta. And there her interior potentialities received due nourishment for their wholesome growth, while they were still incipient.

The then Sister Teresa came to be called 'Mother Teresa' after she took her final vows in 1937 in the Loreto Convent. God beckoned her to His vineyard and it was while travelling on a train to Darjeeling on September 10, 1946 that she received her call from God to work among the poor. The message was quite clear she once declared. Mother Teresa was told by Jesus: 'I want you to serve Me among the poorest of the poor'. This inspiration changed her life.

She knew she had to leave Loreto and her teaching and devote her life to work and prayer among the very poor. She was sure it was an order from the Lord. As a young nun she looked upon the world as a place where she could fulfil her mission after seeing a poor woman dying on the street.

Missionaries of Charity

In 1948, Mother applied to Rome for the privilege of exclaustration - living outside the convent - and it was granted to her. She assumed her new habit (the distinctive white cotton sari with a blue border) and settled in the Calcutta slums, working with a small team of supporters.

At the threshold of her mission with the words, "the poor must know that we love them", she commenced her work for sick and dying. And without much delay she received her mandate to be a free nun outside the cloister and founded her new order 'Missionaries of Charity' on October 7, 1950.

She added a fourth vow of 'wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor'. The routine of these sisters is relentlessly arduous, with every waking moment given either to the people they care for, or God. Indeed it is hard to understand how anyone could actually choose to dedicate his or her entire life to such a cause.

On August 22, 1952, the Home for the Dying was opened at Kalighat and also the Home for Children. The sisters worked regularly in these two Homes.

In 1953, Mother and 28 Sisters left the house which had become too small for the group and went to occupy a house at 54A, Lower Circular Road which became, and still is, the Mother House of the Congregation.

It is a happy place and a great success story and the order spread its wings to more than 600 homes in 136 countries. There are seven houses in Calcutta including the 'Mother House'. They house lepers, the dying, the mentally ill, people with TB and children who have been abandoned or orphaned. All are desperately in need of love, but a notice on the wall cautions visitors not to kiss and cuddle the children for health reasons.

Spirited media personality

Mother Teresa earned a reputation as a courageous media personality for unhesitantly upholding Catholic Doctrine. At the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington DC on February 4, 1994 she spoke to the elite audience including President Bill Clinton. She said, "The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things.

Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning, and said 'You people - who have practised chastity - you are the best people to teach us natural family planning, because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other'." And what Mother Teresa said is very true. "The poor people may have nothing to eat, may be they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich".

This was an unpalatable message but Mother Teresa had the courage to say so. Of course, in such a task, one has often to walk alone as it is said: "The timid walk in crowds, the brave in single file".

I had the honour of meeting Mother Teresa briefly and the few words exchanged with her inspired me tremendously. A friend of mine who visited one of her homes 'Shishu Bhavan' in Calcutta recalled reading a quotation "Of all the nice things in the world the nicest must be Mother", which was hung in a dormitory painted in bright colours with images mixing Christian, Hindu and Muslim traditions where dozens of abandoned and orphaned babies crawled on the floor.

Mother Teresa who has been a true mother to thousands saw poverty as a kind of richness - and richness as impoverishment - as she cared for the dying and unwanted to Calcutta.

Once in an interview when she was asked the most joyful place that she had ever visited at once she said Kalighat. And went on to say that when the people die in peace, in the love of God, it is a wonderful thing. According to her some 23,000 poorest of the poor, the unwanted, the uncared for have died in that one room at Kalighat. More than anyone else, Mother Teresa helped to alleviate the suffering of the sick and the poor in the 20th century.

Her band of energetic nuns whom she nourished and strengthened for her mission will continue to fulfil the aspirations of its founder for the greater glory of God.

Awards and accolades

The many international prizes and awards given to Mother Teresa were like steps that helped her climb the ladder to celebrity and stardom. In 1962, the Indian government conferred on her the 'Padma Sri' (Lord of the Lotus) for her commitment to the poor of the slums in Calcutta. This was the first time the award was given to a non-Indian national. In 1971, she was awarded the first International Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Later in 1972 she received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for 'Dedicated Service to Humanity'.

This followed the Templeton Prize in 1973 and the Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1975. Mother Teresa who became a symbol of selfless charity was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1979 for her decades of work among dying and destitute in the slums of Calcutta. She accepted the Noble Prize declaring. "It gives me great joy and fulfilment to love and care for the poor and neglected. The poor don't need our sympathy and pity. They need our love and compassion."

In 1980 she was showered with the highest Indian award 'The Bharat Ratna' and in 1983 Queen Elizabeth II invested her with the highest British award - the prestigious Order of Merit. She is also the recipient of Magsayasay Award and the John F. Kennedy Award for her untiring and dedicated work towards humanity. In 1992, she received the 12th UNESCO Education for Peace Prize and a year later the first Rajiv Gandhi National Sabhavana Award.

In October 1996, US President Bill Clinton signed a bill giving her honorary American citizenship and she became one of only five foreigners to receive the accolade in the American history. Befittingly, The Herald the Catholic weekly newspaper declared Mother Teresa as 'Christian of the Year 1989' by an all India poll. Her pioneering efforts to upheld the dignity of the human beings touched the hearts of people of all religions all over the world and received the constant guidance and blessings of the Catholic Church. From the very inception she was constantly in touch with the Holy Fathers and in 1964 when Pope Paul VI visited India the Pontiff presented her with his limousine.

She immediately raffled it to finance her leper colony. In 1988, Pope John Paul II opened a vagrant's shelter she set up inside the Vatican walls. The gentle and energetic Mother Teresa visited Sri Lanka for the opening of the home 'Shanthi Nivasa'at Modera in Colombo. Towards Sainthood Mother Teresa's closest confidante and successor, Sister Nirmala says.

"Today, Mother is with the God. Now in His presence, she has more power with the God. There she is very, very powerful". Soon after Mother Teresa's death, the devotees began pressing the Vatican to speed up her sainthood cause, saying that her holiness was clear. Indeed she was a real holy woman who lived her life according to the gospel in the most authentic way.

Yet under the church rules, five years must pass after a person dies before the long bureaucratic procedure of sainthood can begin. But in 1999, Pope John Paul II who has held the Nun in high esteem granted a dispensation so the procedure could start less than two years after her death. Ever since then Mother Teresa, the role model of Roman Catholic virtues has moved along to beatification.

The first miracle attributed to Mother Teresa concerned Monica Bersa, a 30- year-tribal woman from North Bengal in India. Bersa whose incurable abdominal tumour shrank after she held an aluminum medal blessed by Mother Teresa to her stomach and prayed to her. This was in 1998, a year after the Nun's death. Bersa, after four years of her miraculous recovery had told recently, "I am fine now. Mother Teresa's blessings cured me". On December 20, 2002 Pope John Paul II approved the decree of Mother Teresa's beatification, following the first miracle. Mother Teresa was beatified in Rome on October 19, 2003. Rev. Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, who promoted the cause of Mother Teresa's beatification, disclosed that the date was significant because it was not only Mission Sunday but also the nearest Sunday to the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul's pontification.

Mother Teresa had a great love for Pope John Paul II and Holy Father too enormously admired Mother Teresa and she is thought to be the only woman to have set foot in his Pope mobile.

Mother Teresa will be elevated to sainthood once a second miracle is attributed to her since the beatification. That could take several years but the process is moving fast. Mother Teresa said: 'God's greatest grace to me has been to send me suffering so that I could be similar to Jesus dying on the cross out of love for us'. To suffer with Christ for the Church, in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, is perfect joy, because it is perfect love. But few are the souls who experience that joy.

I wish to conclude this tribute to Mother Teresa with her words,

"Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy. Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet".