 |
| Mother Teresa of Calcutta; 1986 at a public pro-life meeting in Bonn, Germany |
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta,[1] born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian: [aˈɲɛs ˈɡɔɲdʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]) and commonly known as Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was an ethnic Albanian, Indian Roman Catholic nun.
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; children's and family counseling programmes; orphanages; and schools. Members of the order must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor".
She was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In late 2003, she was beatified, the third step toward possible sainthood, giving her the title "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta". A second miracle credited to Mother Teresa is required before she can be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.[1] She was admired by many; in 1999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. However, she has also been criticized for failing to provide medical care or pain killers because she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus, for misusing charitable moneys, and for maintaining positive relationships with dictators.[2][3]
Early Life
Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) was born on 26 August 1910, but she considered 27 August, the day she was baptised, to be her "true birthday".[4] She was born in Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, but at the time part of the Ottoman Empire.[4][5]
She was the youngest of the children of Nikollë and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai).[6] Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old.[4][7] After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Her father, Nikollë Bojaxhiu was possibly from Prizren, Kosovo[a] while her mother was possibly from a village near Đakovica, Kosovo.[8]
According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life.[9] Her final resolution was taken on 15 August 1928, while praying at the shrine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.[10]
She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.[11]
Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.[12] She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains,[13] where she learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa’s School, a schoolhouse close to her convent.[14] She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries,[15][16] but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.[17]
She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta.[4][18][19] Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed headmistress.[20]
Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta (Kolkata).[21] The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horrorInternational charity
She said "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."[42]
In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas.[43] Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she travelled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.[44]
When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." She visited the Soviet republic of Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake,[45] and met with Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.[46]
Mother Teresa travelled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.[47][48][49] In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.
By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries.[50] Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centres around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.[51] Mother Teresa was fluent in five languages: Bengali,[52] Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, English, and Hindi.[53]
Declining health and death
Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity, but the sisters of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.[54]
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was declining. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalised with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.[55]
On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997.[56]
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries.[57] These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools. The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co-Workers, who numbered over 1 million by the 1990s.[58]
Mother Teresa lay in repose in St Thomas, Kolkata for one week prior to her funeral, in September 1997. She was granted a state funeral by the Indian government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.[59] Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity."[60] The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world."[60].[22]
0 Comments