by Fr. Raymond J. De Souza
On Aug. 26, 1910, Agnes Gonxha Bojakhiu was born of Albanian parents in the town of Skopje, Macedonia. "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," is how she would describe herself.
Mother Teresa, as the world came to know her, is being honoured by millions today on the centenary of her birth. Not just by the Catholic Church, which already has declared her to be in heaven, and honoured with the title "blessed."
It would be hard to imagine a place farther from the glamour capitals of the world than the slums of Calcutta, where Mother Teresa began her care for the "poorest of the poor." Amongst the wretched of the Earth, she taught her sisters to see "Christ in the distressing disguise of the poor."
In 1952, Mother Teresa found a woman dying in the streets, half-eaten by rats and ants, with no one to care for her. She picked her up and took her to the hospital, but nothing could be done. Realizing that there were many others dying alone in the streets, Mother Teresa opened within days Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), a home for the dying. In the first 20 years alone, over 20,000 people were brought there, half of whom died knowing the love of the Missionaries of Charity. Nirmal Hriday is where one dying man, lying in the arms of Mother Teresa after being plucked from the gutters and bathed and clothed and fed, told her, "I have lived like an animal, but now I am dying like an angel."
Mother Teresa knew that the true good cannot be found in systems or plans, no matter how clever or efficient, but in a person. She was not against the work of welfare agencies, but remarked that welfare was for a purpose, albeit a noble one, whilst love was for a person. Mother Teresa offered love. When criticized by those who accused her of not going to the root causes of problems, she would simply remind them what the true root cause was. "The greatest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody," she would explain. "The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one's neighbour."
Mother Teresa never played to the crowd who wished to obscure the Gospel and reduce her to a humanitarian celebrity. She spoke out against abortion as the "greatest destroyer of peace" when in Oslo at the Nobel ceremony, and shocked the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington when she reminded them of the Christian tradition on the immorality of contraception. She insisted that she was in the gutters for one reason alone -- to bring the love of Christ to each of the souls abandoned there.
The world only knew her as diminutive and wizened, with a slight stoop and gnarled hands. Yet all who met her found her beautiful, for her eyes sparkled and her smile radiated joy.
Sources include
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Saint+gutters/3443731/story.html
http://fatherdesouza.ca/?page_id=5
http://www.motherteresa.org/layout.html
http://www.marypages.com/Theresa.htm
http://www.cmswr.org/member_communities/MC.htm
http://www.mcpriests.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalighat_Home_for_the_Dying
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1986/february/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19860203_nirmal-hriday_en.html
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