If ever God placed a totally pure and diminutive angel on this earth to watch over and care for the poor and unwanted, it would be have been Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, better known as Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic religious sister and missionary.
Christened, Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiv, on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, Anjezë changed her name to Sister Mary Teresa (after St Thèrése of Lisieuz) in 1928 when she joined the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland. Shortly afterwards, in January of 1929, at the tender age of 19, she was sent to do God’s work in Calcutta, India for the rest of her nobel life.
With simplicity and clarity, Mother Teresa, described succinctly her background and heavenly purpose: “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus… proclaiming God’s love for humanity, especially the poorest of the poor.” ¹
Mother Teresa’s vow of poverty and selflessness throughout her 47 year ministry and her unquestionable fervor “to assist the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, and all the people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to society and shunned by everyone” ² was humbling and passionate; unparalleled in scope and purpose. *Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972 and gave the entirety of the $192,000 monetary gift to the poor of India. On the 100th anniversary of her birth in August of 2003, the government of India issued a 5 Rupee coin in commemoration of Mother Teresa’s arrival in India with only one Rupee in her pocket.¹
The Missionaries of Charity, started by Mother Teresa in 1950, opened soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, family counseling, orphanages, schools and hospices for the deathly ill including those stricken with HIV, leprosy and TB throughout India and the world. They gave hope to the sick and dignity to the dying.
By the time Mother Teresa had passed away in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity had grown from 12 to 610 missions world-wide in 123 countries with 4000 sisters, a brotherhood of 300 and civilian co-workers numbering over a million souls.¹
Mother Teresa looked at every human being as a source of love from God. No one would be turned away from her help or that of her ministry because of lack of money, contagious disease or abandonment. It has not been tabulated, that I am aware of, as to how many wanton souls she helped in the course of her life time as well as those of the Missionaries of Charity to this day, but one could estimate in the millions.
On October 19, 2003, Pope John Paul II’s Beatification of Mother Teresa (the first step towards sainthood) before a crowd of 300,000 in St Peters square,¹ exuded gratitude for her celestial spirit, profound love of God and zealous commitment to the work of Jesus; caring for the poorest and unwanted among us . Mother Teresa was truly an exceptional human being.
A symptomatic phenomenon of one who gains notable status, is the shrill outrage of disgruntled individuals whether through jealousy, fear or difference of opinion, who go out of their way to discredit that nobility, and so with Mother Teresa and how she ran her ministry. To those unhappy folks, I would challenge you to volunteer for just one day with the Missionaries of Charity and work side by side in their Dante’s Inferno, caring for the desperately poor or the downtrodden inflicted with contagious diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis and HIV with a tender smile on your face or be able to project your love to the horrifically deformed and do it all for no compensation.
Funny how it’s always the individuals who are never directly involved in an issue that project themselves in the majority of its misdirection and backbiting. But, no matter how many dilatory winds blow to deter Mother Teresa’s canonization, they will eventually disappear and become inconsequential.
“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.
We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”³
― Mother Teresa
¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
³http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/838305.Mother_Teresa
Be First to Comment