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On October 19, 2003 Catholic Church Prelate, John Paul II had beautified Mother Teresa as 'Saint Teresa of Calcutta' in the witness of a huge crowd of around 300,000. 83-year-old, ailing Holy Pope had portrayed her as the 'Icon of Good Samaritan' and said of her 'I am personally grateful to this courageous woman, who I always felt was at my side.' The multifarious crowd, comprised of Monica Bersa whose tumor got cured at intercession of Mother, hundreds of Mother's Indian Nuns in white-and-blue habits of Teresa's order under the leadership of Sr. Nirmala, Cardinals in red silk, Statesmen in blue suits, Priests, Deacons, homeless and destitute, multi-religious admirers of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh religions etc. etc. All together it reflected the global appeal of the Mother of Calcutta. Indian girls danced with incense and flowers on the floor of St. Peter's Basilica spreading rose petals at the feet of the Pope during beatification mass. Mother was not only felt in her birth country of Albania or the vocational land of India but also at every nook and corner of the world. After the Holy Pope read the formula of beautification, when the giant tapestry of a smiling Mother Teresa was unveiled, the vast crowd cheered with big applause.
"Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all" (Mark 10: 44).
"As you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Matthew 25: 40).
Jesus’ above words of basic principles of the universal religion recognizes that an essential element of evangelization is the witness of humility, Love and Compassion. To this reason, life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta speaks to so many hearts and draws them near to Jesus. She never preached from a pulpit or published any theological documents. She had put the Word of God into her actions, doing the proselytization of the Gospel to all those she encountered. Mother Teresa was a real Missionary of the centaury, preaching through the most universal language of love that surpasses all the boundaries and has no preference other than upholding the solidarity to the poorest of the poor. She was the chosen instrument of God like St. Paul to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus to the entire world by her heart and hands and not by the power of tongue.
Gandhiji had renounced his outer garments and clothed in one piece of cloth and had chosen to live in humble dwellings as he believed that he cannot serve Indians unless he became one among them. Mother Teresa owned two saris. She preferred to live in abject poverty, a life as taught by Jesus. She became the attestation of a model of doing little things with great love. In all the pomp and circumstance of the consistory on the two days in which the new cardinals received their hats and rings from the Pope, Pope had reminded them that it was good to remember the example of the little nun with her two saris.
Life style of Mother Teresa was a big miracle we witnessed with our own eyes, and the secret for same was her ardent personal first love for Jesus. This irresistible urge had driven her out into the streets of Calcutta and to the world of sufferers, to touch and cure the sores of lepers, to give a loving touch to the dying destitute, and to caress the untouchables of societies. Sacrifice of her life for the downtrodden was the response to a call from Jesus. Her central message was her love to Jesus first and then to her neighbor. During a public function of Mother Theresa's honor, then Prime Minister of Indira Gandhi told 'In this world of today, so frenetic, it is easy to forget the most essential things. Mother Teresa teaches us that love is what is most essential.'
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on 26 August 1910 in Macedonia as the youngest daughter to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu. She was baptized as Gonxha Agnes, received her First Communion at the age of five and a half and was confirmed in November 1916. Her father Gonxha died at her age of eight, plunging the family to a financial strait. Her mother Drane raised her children lovingly, influencing them in good character and vocation. At the age of eighteen, moved by a strong desire to become a missionary, Gonxha left her home in September 1928 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Ireland. She took the name 'Teresa' after St. Teresa of Avila, patroness of the Missionaries. In December, she departed for India, and reached Calcutta on 6 January 1929. She made her First Profession of Vows in May 1931 and took up an assignment as a teacher 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.” She continued to teach at St. Mary’s School and in 1944 became the school’s principal.
Mother Teresa's voyage of sacrifice in India began, in Calcutta's Creek Lane, narrow for a pedestrian to pass a bicycle rickshaw. She arrived in Motijeel of Calcutta in 1947, asking slum dwellers whether there were children she could teach. Teresa soon had scores of students learning their lessons in tin-roofed shacks. The community later built brick-and-plaster classrooms. She came across a half-dead woman lying in front of a Calcutta hospital. She stayed with the woman and served her until she died. From that point on, she dedicated the majority of her life to helping the poorest of the poor in India, thus gaining her the name "Saint of the Gutters." In 1948 she founded her order of nuns called the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India at her age of 36, dedicated for serving the blind, the aged, lepers, the disabled, and the dying.
She had been granted permission to found her own order, the Missionaries of Charity, in 1950. In 1952, she founded the Nirmal Hriday Home for the Dying in a former temple in Calcutta, the first of many homes for sick and dying street people. It was there that they would care for the dying Indians that were found on the streets. Here, Mother Teresa and her sisters cleaned maggots from the rotting faces of leprosy victims, washed the emaciated bodies of the malnourished, held the hands of the dying. 1953, 28 other women had joined her work. Mother had seen Jesus in everyone that she met. It didn't matter whether they were dying of AIDS or Leprosy. She wanted them to be able to die in peace and with dignity. For over 50 years, she worked selflessly helping the poor. By this time the Missionaries of Charity have grown from 12 sisters in India to over 4,000 in 517 missions throughout 100 countries worldwide.
That devotion towards the poor won her respect throughout the world and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. In 1963 the Indian government awarded her the Padmashri ("Lord of the Lotus") for her services to the people of India, and in 1971 Pope Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.
Over the last two decades of her life, Mother had suffered from heart problems. She suffered a heart attack during a 1983 visit with Pope John Paul II. She suffered another, and more serious, heart attack in 1989. It was then that a pacemaker was installed. During her last year, she suffered from malaria and was treated for a chest infection. Mother died in her convent in India at the age of 87.
During 1974 Mother told in an interview "I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" This quotation of Mother Teresa is enough for any God loving person to understand the meaning of real love Jesus taught to us and to get inspired. "This not enough for us to say 'I love God', but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?"...Mother Theresa.
Whomever she met she said; "You must find out who your poor are." She was a personified universal emblem of love and Christian charity. As per her words: “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.” “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.” During 1974 Mother told in an interview "I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?"
New millennium is an occasion to affirm our commitment to make the face of Christ increasingly more visible within the Church and society through consistent witness to the Gospel that is Jesus Christ himself.
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