“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. ”Small
of stature, rocklike in faith, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the
mission of proclaiming God’s thirsting love for humanity, especially for the
poorest of the poor. “God
still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion
to the poor.” She was a soul
filled with the light of Christ, on fire with love for Him and burning with one
desire: “to quench His
thirst for love and for souls.”
Mother Teresa
Born: 26 August 1910, Uskup (now Skopje), Ottoman
Empire (now Republic of Macedonia)
Died: 5 September 1997, Calcutta, India
Residence at the time of the
award:India
Role: Leader of Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta
Field: Humanitarian work
This luminous
messenger of God’s love was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, a city situated
at the crossroads of Balkan history. The youngest of the children born to
Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu, she was baptised Gonxha Agnes, received her First
Communion at the age of five and a half and was confirmed in November 1916.
From the day of her First Holy Communion, a love for souls was within her. Her
father’s sudden death when Gonxha was about eight years old left in the family
in financial straits. Drane raised her children firmly and lovingly, greatly
influencing her daughter’s character and vocation. Gonxha’s religious formation
was further assisted by the vibrant Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in which
she was much involved.
At the age of
eighteen, moved by a desire to become a missionary, Gonxha left her home in
September 1928 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the
Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. There she received the name Sister Mary Teresa
after St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In December, she departed for India, arriving in
Calcutta on 6 January 1929. After making her First Profession of Vows in May
1931, Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta
and taught at St. Mary’s School for girls. On 24 May 1937, Sister Teresa made
her Final Profession of Vows, becoming, as she said, the “spouse of Jesus” for “all
eternity.” From that time on
she was called Mother Teresa. She continued teaching at St. Mary’s and in 1944
became the school’s principal. A person of profound prayer and deep love for
her religious sisters and her students, Mother Teresa’s twenty years in Loreto
were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and
courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she
lived out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with
fidelity and joy.
On 10 September
1946 during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat,
Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,” her “call
within a call.” On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’
thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate
His thirst became the driving force of her life. Over the course of the next
weeks and months, by means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to
her the desire of His heart for “victims
of love” who would “radiate His love on souls.” “Come be My light,” He begged her. “I cannot go alone.” He revealed His pain at the neglect of
the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love.
He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of
Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor. Nearly two years
of testing and discernment passed before Mother Teresa received permission to
begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white,
blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent
to enter the world of the poor.
After a short
course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to
Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On 21
December she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed
the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and
nursed a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with
Jesus in the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve
Him in “the unwanted, the
unloved, the uncared for.” After
some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students.
On 7 October
1950 the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially
established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa
began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted
to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a
house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania
and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through
the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist
countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.
In order to
respond better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother
Teresa founded the Missionaries
of Charity Brothers in 1963,
in 1976 the contemplative
branch of the Sisters, in
1979 the Contemplative
Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries
of Charity Fathers.Yet her inspiration was not limited to those with
religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers
of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering
Co-Workers, people of many
faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity,
sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This spirit later
inspired the Lay Missionaries
of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother
Teresa also began the Corpus
Christi Movement for Priests as
a“little way of holiness” for
those who desire to share in her charism and spirit.
During the
years of rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa
and the work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian
Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her
work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities.
She received both prizes and attention “for
the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”
The whole of
Mother Teresa’s life and labour bore witness to the joy of loving, the
greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done
faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. But
there was another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after
her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her
interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of
being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing
longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul,
which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to
the end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God.
Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His
painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation
of the poor.
During the last
years of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa
continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the
Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were
established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she
blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of
Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for
the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving
visitors and instructing her Sisters. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly
life came to an end. She was given the honor of a state funeral by the
Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the
Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and
prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a
testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her
response to Jesus’ plea, “Come
be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a
symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love
of God.
Less than two
years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of
holiness and the favors being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the
opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the
decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.
No comments:
Post a Comment