“By
blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am
a Catholic nun" |
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“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: |
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In
December, she departed for India, arriving in Calcutta on 6 January
1929.
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“to quench His thirst for love and for souls.” 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 Kolkatta 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 honour
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 favours 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. |
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| 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. |
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