"EACH ONE OF THEM IS JESUS IN DISGUISE"

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty”

SHE STARTED WITH HER THREE SAREES AND A FIVE-RUPEE NOTE....

THE ONLY THING SHE HAD IN ABUNDANCE WAS FAITH IN HER MISSION …

THE FACT THAT THERE WAS NO BUILDING, NO CHAIRS OR TABLES DID NOT DETER HER. ON A SMALL OPEN PATCH AMONG THE SHANTIES, SHE BEGAN TO SCRATCH THE BENGALI ALPHABET WITH A STICK ON THE GROUND....…

She was a Christian by faith, an Albanian by blood and an Indian by citizenship. As to her calling, she belonged to the world. Small in stature, rock like 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 Jesus Christ, with HIS love for the poor, the sick and the needy. This messenger of God’s love was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, a city in the former Yugoslavia. The youngest of the children born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu.

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 in Ireland. There she received the name Sister Mary Teresa. In December, she departed for India, arriving in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. In Calcutta she taught at St. Mary’s School for girls. 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.

Missionaries of Charity was born, 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 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.

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.”

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. The group soon started a facility wherein poor people, who were dying on the streets, were brought and taken care of. The service inspired people to join the noble cause and donate funds for the organization working under Mother Teresa.

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 charisma and spirit. 

In 1980, she started Homes for people with no one to look after them, people suffering from various incurable diseases, prostitutes, drug addicts and orphans. One of her most significant works was the establishment of center for AIDS patients in 1985, wherein thousands of patients were provided shelter. The Missionaries of Charity was officially recognized as an International Association, on March 29, 1969. By the beginning of 1990s, the number of co-workers had increased manifold and there were about a million of them, working in about 40 countries across the world. 

By 1990, 456 centers were established in more than one hundred countries. During that year 500,000 families were fed, 20,000 slum children were taught in 124 schools, 90,000 leprosy patients were treated and 17,048 ‘shut-ins’ were visited in their homes. Six AIDS shelters admitted 661 patients. From houses for alcoholics and drug abusers, the missionaries of charity have created a multinational organization that reaches out to the helpless and the poor.

The sisters are in the most unlikely places on every continent. Mother Teresa was once asked if there was any place she had not reached. She replied with a laugh, ‘if there are poor on the moon, we shall go there too!’ When asked where will the order go from here? Mother Teresa replied:’ I do not worry about yesterday for it is past and tomorrow is yet to come’

During the last years of her life, despite facing several health problems, Mother Teresa continued to serve the poor and needy and work for her Society and Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4000, working in about 610 foundations in 123 countries across the world. Her newly-elected successor was appointed the Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, in March 1997. After meeting Pope John Paul II, she returned to Calcutta, where she spent her last weeks receiving visitors and giving instructions to her Sisters.

Judging the impact that Mother Teresa had on society is difficult at best.  It would be true to say that her dedication to helping those who couldn’t help themselves has been an inspiration to the world.  But that doesn’t quite communicate the full scope of what her life meant to the world.  An inspiration is something that comes and goes.  It is good for a moment, it causes to feel something, and then it is gone.

Mother Teresa’s life was so much more than that.   Mother Teresa was an agent of change.  She did more than inspire us; she changed the way that we thought about the world around us.  Mother Teresa took what God had given her and used it for His glory.  What she taught us was that every person, regardless of wealth, health, social standing, religion, sex, or creed, has value in the eyes of God. She taught us “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

Though she is no longer on this earth, the ministry that Mother Teresa began is thriving throughout the world.  She has restored dignity to the shunned, love to the outcast, and life to the dying.  Through her home for the dying in Calcutta, those who would have been left to die in the gutters were given clean beds, warm meals, and someone to love them during their final days on earth.   Since its creation, more than 40,000 men, women, and children were taken from the streets of Calcutta and transported to the home.  Of those, one half died surrounded by love and kindness.  For those who survived, the sisters tried to find a job or they were sent to homes where they could live happily for years to come.

   

Her Shishu Bavan, or home for babies, as well as other orphanages have offered shelter and hope to countless children around the world.   Many of the children that were raised in them went on to become productive citizens and members of her order.

The leper colony Mother Teresa founded with the winnings from her 1971 Pope Paul XXIII  Peace Prize has offered a place for the outcasts to find acceptance.  When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she convinced the committee to cancel the official banquet and used that money to buy meals for 15,000 poor.    Hundreds of thousands of meals have been served in her kitchens world wide.

Today, her sisters are active all over India and outside in many countries in the world: From Venezuela to Jordan, from Italy to Tanzania, from the United States to Russia.  She also opened houses for alcoholics, drug addicts, and homeless and destitues in Rome as well as homes for AIDS patients all over the world.  The Pope was also asked to open a house for mothers with unwanted pregnancies.  Mother Teresa also supported the rehabilitation of prisoners in India.

The death of Mother Teresa was a huge loss to humanity. She departed from this world, in Calcutta, on 5th September 1997, when she was 87 years old. On 19th October 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa. The beatification, which took place in Rome, marked the first step of her sainthood.

Her work has opened the hearts of an unknown number of people to the message of Jesus Christ. Her greatest impact on society was to bring an awareness that love is worth nothing unless it is given for free. She said “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing.

It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.”

She taught us that Love will open doors that hate has closed.  She taught us that the greatest way to show God’s love is to meet the needs of others.

“If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.”