Mother TeresaThe Nobel Peace Prize 1979Biography

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary

helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work.On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.Today the order comprises Active and Contemplative branches of Sisters and Brothers in many countries. In 1963 both the Contemplative branch of the Sisters and the Active branch of the Brothers was founded. In 1979 the Contemplative branch of the Brothers was added, and in 1984 the Priest branch was established.The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. They provide effective help to the poorest of the poor in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and they undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes such as floods, epidemics, and famine, and for refugees. The order also has houses in North America, Europe and Australia, where they take care of the shut-ins, alcoholics, homeless, and AIDS sufferers.The Missionaries of Charity throughout the world are aided and assisted by Co-Workers who became an official International Association on March 29, 1969. By the 1990s there were over one million Co-Workers in more than 40 countries. Along with the Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's spirit and charism in their families.

Mother Teresa's work has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world and she has received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971) and the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding (1972). She also received the Balzan Prize (1979) and the Templeton and Magsaysay awards.From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1971-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Angel Mother Teresa:

(CNN) -- "The other day I dreamed that I was at the gates of heaven....And St. Peter said, 'Go back to Earth, there are no slums up here.'" 

These words, once spoken by Mother Teresa, vividly recall the life of the late Roman Catholic nun and missionary known as "the Saint of the Gutters." For Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to the succor of the sick and the outcast, earthly sufferers were nothing less than Christ in "distressing disguise." 

From an early age, the girl who would become Mother Teresa felt the call to help others. Born August 26, 1910, in Skopje (now in Macedonia), Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was the daughter of Albanian parents -- a grocer and his wife. As a public school student she developed a special interest in overseas missions and, by age 12, realized her vocation was aiding the poor. 

She was inspired to work in India by reports sent home from Jesuit missionaries in Bengal. And at 18, she left home to join a community of Irish nuns with a mission in Calcutta. Here, she took the name "Sister Teresa," after Saint Teresa of Lisieux, the patroness of missionaries. She spent 17 years teaching and being principal of St. Mary's high school in Calcutta. However, in 1946, her life changed forever. 

After taking a medical training course to prepare for her new mission, she went into the slums of Calcutta to start a school for children. They called her "Mother Teresa." 

Through the years, Mother Teresa's fame grew, as did the magnitude of her deeds... 

Highlights of Mother Teresa's life

1910: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu born August 27 in Skopje, in what is now Macedonia, the youngest of three children of an Albanian builder. 

1928: Becomes novitiate in Loretto order, which ran mission schools in India, and takes name Sister Teresa. 

1929: Arrives in Calcutta to teach at St. Mary's High School. 

1937: Takes final vows as a nun. 

1946: While riding a train to the mountain town of Darjeeling to recover from suspected tuberculosis, she said she received a calling from God "to serve him among the poorest of the poor." 

1947: Permitted to leave her order and moves to Calcutta's slums to set up her first school. 

1950: Founds the order of Missionaries of Charity. 

1952: Opens Nirmal Hriday, or "Pure Heart," a home for the dying, followed next year by her first

orphanage. 

1962: Wins her first prize for her humanitarian work: the Padma Shri award for distinguished service. Over the years, she uses the money from such prizes to found dozens of new homes. 

1979: Wins Nobel Peace Prize. 

1982: Persuades Israelis and Palestinians to stop shooting long enough to rescue 37 retarded children from a hospital in besieged Beirut. 

1983: Has a heart attack while in Rome visiting Pope John Paul II. 

1985: Awarded Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award. 

1989: Has a second and nearly fatal attack. Doctors implant a pacemaker. 

1990: Announces her intention to resign, and a conclave of sisters is called to choose successor. In a secret ballot, Mother Teresa is re-elected with only one dissenting vote -- her own -- and withdraws request to step down. 

1991: Suffers pneumonia in Tijuana, Mexico, leading to congestive heart failure, and is hospitalized in La Jolla, California. 

1993: Breaks three ribs in fall in May in Rome; hospitalized for malaria in August in New Delhi;

undergoes surgery to clear blocked blood vessel in Calcutta in September. 

1996: November 16, receives honorary U.S. citizenship. 

1996: Falls and breaks collarbone in April; suffers malarial fever and failure of the left heart ventricle in August; treated for a chest infection and recurring heart problems in September. Readmitted to hospital with chest pains and breathing problems November 22. 

1997: March 13, steps down as head of her order.

Among the 124 Awards Received some were:

Padmashree Award (from the President of India) August 1962 Pope John XXIII Peace Prize January 1971 John F. Kennedy International Award September 1971 Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding November 1972 Templeton Prize for "Progress in Religion" April 1973 Nobel Peace Prize December 1979 Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India) March 1980 Order of Merit (from Queen Elizabeth) November 1983 Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee August 1987 United States Congressional Gold Medal June 1997At the time of Mother Teresa's death, The Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity numbered 3,914 members, and were established in 594 communities in 123 countries of the world. Her work continues under the guidance of Sister Nirmala, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters. The order has grown over 4,000 members in 697 foundations in

131 countries of the world.

Early lifeAgnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu / (Albanian Gonxha for "rosebud") was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. Although she was born on August 26, she considered August 27, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday." Although some sources state that she was 10 when her father died, in an interview with her brother, the Vatican documents her age at the time as "about eight". She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to Nikolle and Drana Bojaxhiu. Her father was involved in Albanian politics. In 1919, after a political meeting, which left Skopje out of Albania, he fell ill and died when Agnes was about eight years old. After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. 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, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.

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. She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains. She took her first religious vows as a nun on May 24, 1931. At that time she

chose the name Teresa after Therese de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries. She took her solemn vows on May 14, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. A famine in 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.

Missionaries of CharityOn September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border, adopted Indian citizenship, and ventured out into the slums. Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the Prime Minister, who expressed his appreciation.

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no

income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt,

loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early

months. She wrote in her diary:

“ Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come. ”

Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, and all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into

the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels — loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with fivesisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Her philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. While noting how little evidence Mother

Teresa's critics were able to find against her, David Scott wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself. She has also been criticized for her view on suffering: according to an article in the Alberta Report, she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press, notably The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, which reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an anti-materialist approach that precluded the use of systematic diagnosis.

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and 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, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

International charity

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. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.

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."

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims inArmenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home inTirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers 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.

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens and the liberal German magazine Stern have said that money that was donated with the intention of it

being spent on the keeping of the poor was spent on other projects instead.

Declining health and deathMother 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 nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. Her hadheart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997. 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 hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by thedevil.

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family

counseling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools.

Global recognition and receptionReception in India

Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shriin 1962. She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding and, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Her official Biography was authored by an Indian Civil Servant, Navin Chawla and published in 1992-“Mother Teresa- The Authorized Biography” ISBN-10: 0756755484, ISBN-13: 978-0756755485.

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and bred in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city. Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bhartiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental"

and accused her of favoring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But, in its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so. More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph referred to her as "the Saint of the Gutters", also mentioning calls for "Rome to investigate whether she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause".

Mother Teresa lay in state 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.

Reception in the rest of the world

President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, 1985

In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia.

The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation". By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976). Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honored by both governments and civilian organizations. The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received

on November 16, 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honor of the Nation in 1994. Her acceptance of this and another honor granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliersand to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees. Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978), and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out,

that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." More specifically, she singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for the BritishChannel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product. Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries. Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

The German magazine Stern published a critical article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. This concerned allegations regarding financial matters and the spending of donations. The medical

press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs. Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.

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." The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world." During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the US, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century" by a poll in the US. She out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

Spiritual life

Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart." Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly fifty years until the end of her life, during which "she felt no presence of God

whatsoever," "neither in her heart or in the eucharist" as put by her postulator Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith:

Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, … What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.

With reference to the above words, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator (the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) indicated there was a risk that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence.  Many other saints had similar experiences of religious doubt, or what Catholics believe to be spiritual tests, such as Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a "night of nothingness." Contrary to the mistaken belief by some that the doubts she expressed would be an impediment to canonization, just the opposite is true; it is very consistent with the experience of canonized mystics.

Mother Teresa described, after ten years of doubt, a short period of renewed faith. At the time of the death of Pope Pius XII in the fall of 1958, praying for him at a requiem mass, she said she had been relieved of "the long darkness: that strange suffering." However, five weeks later, she described returning to her difficulties in believing. 

Mother Teresa wrote numerous letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me -- less of Jesus." However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday). In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith." Some critics of Mother Teresa, such as Christopher Hitchens, view her writings as evidence that her public image was created primarily for publicity despite her personal beliefs and actions. Hitchens writes, "So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to believe?" However, others such as Brian

Kolodiejchuk, Come Be My Light's editor, draw comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "dark night of the soul" to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters. The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator.

In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service." Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."

Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi. Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning during thanksgiving after Communion and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.

Miracle and beatification

Statue of Mother Teresa on display at the Parish of Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary) in Real del Monte, Hidalgo,Merxico.

Following Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from theintercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. It is claimed that some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband insisted that conventional medical treatment eradicated the tumor. An opposing perspective of the claim is that Monica's medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions, and physicians' notes that could conceivably prove whether the cure was a miracle or not. Monica has claimed Sister Betta of the Missionaries of Charityis holding them. The publication has received a "no comments" statement from Sister Betta. The officials at the Balurghat Hospital where Monica was seeking medical treatment are claiming that they are being pressured by the Catholic order to declare the cure as a miracle. 

Christopher Hitchens was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against Mother Teresa’s beatification and canonization process, as the Vatican had abolished the traditional "devil's

advocate" role, which fulfilled a similar purpose. Hitchens has argued that "her intention was not to help people", and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. “It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty,” says Hitchens. “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’" In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia(the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens' allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's beatification. Due to the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a sign of contradiction. The beatification of Mother Teresa took place on October 19, 2003, thereby bestowing on her the title "Blessed". Unless dispensed by the Pope, a second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.

Commemor

AP

Mother Teresa prays during a religious service in 1977

Heroes & iconsMother TeresaIn fighting for the dignity of the destitute in a foreign land, she gave the world a moral example that bridged divides of culture, class and religionBy BHARATI MUKHERJEE 

Monday, June 14, 1999The Bengali chauvinist in me got a thrill: "This is Peter Jennings, tonight live from Calcutta." For the first and only time in my life, the great city I was born and raised in hit the big time. Bengalis love to celebrate their language, their culture, their politics, their fierce attachment to a city that has been famously "dying" for more than a century. They resent with equal ferocity the reflex stereotyping that

labels any civic dysfunction anywhere in the world "another Calcutta." And why were the American media in Calcutta? For the funeral of an 87-year-old Albanian immigrant by the name of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu.

In this era of "ethnic cleansing," identity politics and dislocation of communities, it is heartening that one of the most marginalized people in recent history — a minority Albanian inside Slavic Macedonia, a minority Roman Catholic among Muslims and Orthodox Christians — should find a home, citizenship and acceptance in an Indian city of countless non-Christians. She blurred the line between insider and outsider that so many today are trying to deepen.

Bojaxhiu was born of Roman Catholic Albanian parents in 1910 in Shkup (now Skopje), a town that straddled the ethnic, linguistic, religious and geological fault line in the then Turkish province, later Yugoslav republic, now absurdly unnameable independent state of FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). When she was seven, her father was murdered. Bojaxhiu chose emigration over political activism and at the age of 18 entered the Sisters of Loreto's convent in Ireland as a novice. The Sisters of Loreto, a teaching order, sent her to Bengal in 1929. She spoke broken English and had yet to take her first vows.

India's National MagazineFrom the publishers of THE HINDUVol. 14 :: No. 19 :: Sept.20 - Oct. 3,1997 COVER STORY

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

With its steady focus on those who live in poverty and dispossession, the Missionaries of Charity addresses a special need of the modern world.

PARVATHI MENONin Calcutta and Titagarh

IT is work as usual for the group of seven Sisters and 30 volunteers on a Tuesday morning at Nirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes established in 1952 by Mother Teresa at Kalighat, one of Calcutta's most congested areas. Four days have passed since Mother Teresa's death. Her familiar fragile figure, draped in a white sari with blue border - the livery of her congregation, the Missionaries of Charity - lies in a glass casket in St. Thomas' Church. Thousands of mourners file past for a last view of her. Preparations are on for a state funeral and public Mass.

But in Nirmal Hriday, there is no time to pause and consider this, nor indeed to allow it to delay the urgent tasks at hand. "Mother longed to be here in Nirmal Hriday," said soft-spoken Sister Dolores, who is in charge of the centre. "It was her first love and

her heart was here. But work must go on - birth and death are part and parcel of life."

RATNA DASNirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes established by Mother Teresa at Kalighat in 1952.

And work proceeds, in a brisk and no-nonsense fashion, as it would on any other morning. The acrid smell of disinfectant on human excretions fill the high-ceilinged wards where lie the emaciated, skin-and-bone inmates of Nirmal Hriday. They are the desperately poor, victims of malnourishment and illness, those who inhabit the crevices of the big city of Calcutta. Nirmal Hriday has offered them a place of repose, where they can get free basic medical attention, often for festering body sores and gangrene, or for infectious diseases like tuberculosis; where they are given nutritious food; where they, unimaginably, are the guests of honour, caringly ministered to.

RATNA DASThe weaving section at the Gandhiji Prem Nivas Leprosy Centre at Titagarh.

There are 50 men in the male ward and 87 in the female ward, numbers that vary every day. "Most of them have been picked up in a sick or even dying condition," said Sister Dolores. "Many get better and leave, knowing that they can come back. Some are here for their last moments but die here with dignity, love and care." As she speaks, she makes way for two young women volunteers who carefully

manoeuvre a stretcher on which lies the slight figure of a corpse wrapped in white that they are taking to the mortuary. There is a flurry of quiet but purposive activity. Inmates are being fed (some nasally) and bathed; beds are being cleared of linen, blankets and rubber sheets that are changed and taken away for washing; plates, dishes and trays are removed; cooking starts for the afternoon meal. By half past ten, dressing trays are ready, medicines are administered, and intravenous drips started for those who need them.

"Mother gave us our fourth vow - to give ourselves to the poorest of the poor," said Sister Dolores. "For us this is not just social work; we see Jesus in each person we care for, we see Him in our work."

All priests and nuns must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, but it is the fourth vow, to give "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor", that is unique to the congregation of the Missionaries of Charity, and which is its foundational principle. This mission came to Mother Teresa in 1946 as a special inspiration, described by her as a "Call within a Call."

THE range of activities carried out by the Missionaries of Charity includes child welfare and adoption centres, educational instruction, family visiting, day creches, feeding programmes and soup kitchens, homes for alcoholics, night shelters and 'natural' family planning centres. Medical-cum-social activities include dispensaries, leprosy clinics and rehabilitation centres, homes for the abandoned,

crippled and mentally retarded children, for unwed mothers, for sick and dying destitutes and for AIDS patients.

With a steady focus on those who live on the periphery of society - in poverty and dispossession, those who fall outside any social support mechanism, be it a job, personal assets, the public distribution system, or in many cases, the family as well - they address a special need of the modern world. It is the 'poorest of the poor' focus that has galvanised her dedicated workforce and spurred the rapid worldwide expansion of Mother Teresa's mission.

According to Navin Chawla, Mother Teresa's biographer, 476 centres had been established by 1990 in more than a hundred countries, including Cuba. That year, there were 4,000 Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity.

RATNA DASAt Prem Dan, one of the shelter homes run by the Missionaries of Charity.

Seven years on, the numbers have swelled. According to Sister Nirmala, the new Superior-General, there are now 580 centres around the world and 4,000 Sisters.

Securing precise information on the Missionaries of Charity is not an easy task. Although the organisation does not shun publicity, it does not seek it either. Nor does it consider publicity necessary for its work or for the purpose of fund-raising. The Missionaries of

Charity has no brochures or pamphlets describing its work or recording its achievements, so information must be gleaned the hard way, by visits to the centres and interviews with the inmates and the Sisters who run them.

After Mother Teresa's death, Mother House, the administrative heart of all the centres or "houses" of the Missionaries of Charity, virtually shut itself off as an information source, and Sisters were under strict instructions not to talk to the media until the funeral was over. In a centre this correspondent visited, the sister-in-charge firmly sent a television camera crew from Argentina out, unmoved by their pleas and promises to "tell the people in our country of your good work."

IT is upon charity that all of Mother Teresa's work for the poor depends. Most of the centres she has started are not self-supporting, neither is self-sufficiency an aim in most of these centres - except at the level of encouraging, even assisting, cured individuals to get on with the business of life. One of the many criticisms levelled against Mother Teresa's kind of charity-dependent work is that it institutionalises - even glorifies - poverty. Charity blinds the poor to the real causes of their poverty and reduces their sense of self-worth, just as it salves the conscience of the rich.

But so long as iniquitous societies and economic systems generate appalling levels of poverty, the centres that have been the focus of Mother Teresa's work answer to an objective need, regardless of how

small they are and where they raise resources. This idea has, in fact, been supported by the Left Front Government. Jyoti Basu, West Bengal's Marxist Chief Minister, in his condolence message, made particular mention of how Mother Teresa helped the State by her work with the destitute; but for her, he noted, many street children would have turned criminal.

The knowledge and conviction that her work responded to a real need allowed Mother Teresa to justify donations from the most dubious and repressive of individuals and organisations. "Money," she told her biographer Navin Chawla, "I never give it a thought. It always comes."

And yet, as is well known, she laid down strict conditions on the acceptance of charity. She did not accept government funding or Church maintenance. This was not because of any ideological objection, but, according to Chawla, for the rather odd reason that it would involve keeping detailed accounts and distract at least one Sister from "real work" - that of giving herself to the poor.

RATNA DASShishu Bhavan, a home for abandoned children.

Mother Teresa specifically forbade her order and her supporters from fund-raising activities. She also did not allow charity money to be invested. Coming from a person whose entire set-up was run on donations, these strict rules may appear surprising. However, far from discouraging donations, they have proved to be sound strategy, as the Missionaries of Charity has

not been short of funds.The Missionaries of Charity, according to one account, received donations of Rs.392 in 1951. There are no estimates of the volume of donations to the congregation today, but the donations are known to run to millions of dollars.

"I think Mother Teresa never believed in fund-raising because she believed work was important and that money should come only from people who want to give," said Bill Canny, a representative of the St. Thomas' Church, Calcutta.

A visit to her centres also make clear why self-sufficiency cannot become the avowed goal of many of them. To Nirmal Hriday or Prem Dan, yet another of Mother Teresa's homes, come persons broken in body and spirit, who, even if they live a few more months or years, are beyond rehabilitation. For them such a centre is a last resort, an indication that they have given up or have lost the fight.

BUT this is not the picture in all her centres. The Gandhiji Prem Nivas Leprosy Centre, which stretches across a narrow 10-km strip along the Titagarh-Khardah railway line, was set up by Mother Teresa in 1958. It began as a mobile clinic under a tree in the midst of an ostracised, crime-ridden community of the leprosy afflicted. In 1960, the Titagarh Municipality donated the land on which the buildings now stand. Very early in her mission to work with destitutes, she was drawn to the plight of the leprosy-afflicted amongst destitutes because of the social stigma attached to leprosy. The disease is

easily treated, but battling the stigma was an uphill task.

There are more than 1,000 persons in Prem Nivas, according to Brother Prashanto Sarkar, the Assistant Director of the Centre. Of them 750 are cured and work in various departments of the centre, at tasks such as spinning and weaving, carpentry, making artificial limbs and tailoring. Around 300 of the inmates are ward patients, under treatment for leprosy. Brother Prashanto said that there were also about 35,000 outpatients on Prem Nivas' registers, people who came for medication and to have their wounds dressed.

None of the activities in Prem Nivas is geared to the market. The saris worn by the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity are woven here, as are the sheets, bedspreads and cloth used in the various centres. There is an artificial limb and crutch-making centre, and a tailoring section where rubber and plastic sheets are stitched, all for in-house use. Workers are paid a wage of Rs.20 a day, but are also provided with food, clothing, housing, medical care and medicine. "We have no particular source of income to run all this," said Brother Prashanto. "The average monthly expenditure is Rs. 10 lakhs and Mother House provides us with the money we need."

Prem Nivas has truly transformed lives. Swapan Lal, 31, who now looks after the weaving section, came here with leprosy in 1987. His family was very poor and his sister soon joined him. He was treated for five years and cured. He decided to stay on in the

centre and work, as did his sister after she was cured. He married a woman who is also a cured patient of leprosy. "I intend to live here," he said. "I am happy and can serve others."

MOTHER TERESA categorised the work of her mission on the basis of the type of service each centre demanded from a Missionary of Charity. She was firm that Sisters had to go to the streets, slums, villages and into homes. It was only in respect of special centres - such as leprosy centres, the homes for children (like Shishu Bhavan), the centres for the dying and destitutes, and centres for the mentally retarded and sick like Prem Dan - that she allowed Sisters to remain in residence to run these centres with the help of novices and volunteers.

Volunteers are indeed an important part of the life of such centres. Drawn by what they have read, seen or heard of Mother Teresa and her work, they come from all corners of the world, at their own expense, to work in her centres. In political Calcutta, many people view the work of volunteers with some cynicism. Tenderly soaping down a dirty street urchin at Howrah station may send a foreigner on a high, but it does not make a dent on general levels of hygiene - so the criticism goes. The reasons that draw such volunteers to work in Mother Teresa's centres are usually intensely personal and complex. Insofar as the Sisters are concerned, volunteers provide a ready army of willing hands to work.

Silvia Del Conte, a law student from Italy, and her friend Giorgia Masini, an architecture student, have

come for just 15 days, but have thrown themselves into the work, whether it is playing with disabled children at Sishu Bhavan or washing soiled sheets at Nirmal Hriday. "I am not very religious but I believe in humanity," said Sylvia. "You have to do what you feel you know."

THERE are some basic rules laid down by Mother Teresa for the Missionaries of Charity. The first is the Rule of Two - Sisters have to move around in pairs, as it offers some protection to them when they are in physical danger - in war and riot situations, for example. Secondly, no one is allowed to eat or drink outside the convent or workplace and each person must carry her water along - a practical way of not putting the burden of hospitality upon those who cannot afford it, and of keeping healthy and free of infections. The Sisters must travel as the poor do - walk, or if the distance is far, use public transport. And finally, the Sisters and Brothers must own only three sets of clothes, which must be darned and patched before they are replaced.

THE Shishu Bhavans established all over India have become the symbol of Mother Teresa's work. Hers has certainly been a very important influence in breaking the prejudices surrounding adoption that exist in India. But although adoption remains an important part of the activities of these centres, many of them provide continuous care and a permanent home for hundreds of mentally retarded and severely handicapped children. At the Shishu Bhavan in Calcutta, there were 138 such children on the day I visited. They were all in a nursery-cum-

ward full of light and toys and with bright pictures on the walls. Many of these children are taken in adoption. The children on the adoption track are in a large adjacent house with several rooms-turned-nurseries. On the day of the visit, there were 300 of them, infants and toddlers, dressed in royal purple, and together making an ear-shattering racket.

Sixty-five Sisters and novices run Prem Dan. It was started in 1973 in a godown donated by ICI. "We have nearly 350 inmates here right now," said Sister Denisa who is in charge of the centre. "They suffer mostly from malnutrition, tuberculosis, various kinds of physical handicaps, mental problems; some have cancer. We have a doctor who looks in once a month." Like all Mother Teresa's centres, Prem Dan is clean, and enveloped with an air of calm. But it is perhaps here that the limitations of the philosophy of service that characterise Mother Teresa's centres make themselves most apparent.

Mother Teresa has been criticised for not making high-quality medical treatment available to the poor, using the considerable influence she has. It is a point that Christopher Hitchens raises in his book on Mother Teresa, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995; Indus, 1996). In the chapter "Good Works and Heroic Virtues", he refers to the visit of Dr. Robin Fox, Editor of the medical journal The Lancet, to one of Mother Teresa's centres in Calcutta in 1994. Fox, astonished at the absence of simple testing procedures, which could distinguish an incurable from a curable disease, later wrote: "Such systematic approaches

are alien to the ethos of the home... Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Teresa's approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer."

While Hitchens' own conclusions from this are not convincing (he writes that she runs a "haphazard and cranky institution" as part of a deliberate agenda, that is, "the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection"), the lack of medical expertise does indeed strike most visitors to Mother Teresa's care centres.

Medical treatment in Prem Dan, for example, is rudimentary and inadequate for a centre of 350 inmates who suffer from a range of medical disorders. A doctor comes just once a month. With a little extra organisational effort, a centre like Prem Dan could have linked up with a network of specialised medical institutes in the city and even outside, giving patients with curable ailments access to advanced medical care.

WITH Mother Teresa's death, an era has come to an end. Her successors in the Missionaries of Charity are well aware of the void that she has left behind, but are not perturbed by what lies ahead. There has been no mourning period as such for the Sisters, and if Sister Nirmala, Mother's successor, has been unavailable to the media (except for one press conference) it is because she believes that work is more important than public relations, even at a time like this. Mother Teresa had prepared her congregation for her death and used to say: "As long

as we are faithful, and go where God's work has to be done, we will be all right".

There is little doubt that Mother Teresa's legacy will endure. She will be missed, not just by her colleagues in the congregation, but by countless others - by Roma Ghosh and Mira Adhikari from Titagarh, cured of leprosy, who thank Mother "for making it possible for us to work, not beg"; by Tamal, a young Bengali volunteer for whom "Mother was like a magnet" and who continues to go to Nirmal Hriday even though she is no more; by ancient, bleary-eyed, senile Bhalu, an inmate of Prem Dan, who, clutching her rubber doll in her arms, waits for Mother, the only person in the world she recognises, and in honour of whose visits she always wore a red dress. They will be the poorer for her loss.

Mother Teresa's business was : Money for a good conscience. The donors benefitted the most from this. The poor hardly. Whosoever believed that Mother Teresa wanted to cahnge the world, eliminate suffering or fight poverty, simply wanted to believe it for their own sakes. Such people did not listen to her. To be poor, to suffer was a goal, almost an ambition or an achievement for her and she imposed this goal upon those under her wings; her actual ordained goal was the hereafter.

Missionaries of Charity

Missionaries of Charity is a Roman Catholic religious order established in 1950 by Mother Teresa of

Calcutta, which consists of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. Members of the order designate their affiliation using the order's initials, "MC." Member nuns 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".The Missionaries of Charity Brothers (active Branch) were founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. In 1984, the Missionaries of Charity Fathers was founded by Mother Teresa with Fr. Joseph Langford, to combine the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the ministerial priesthood. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics constitute the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity.Missionaries care for those who include refugees, ex-prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, lepers, AIDS victims, the aged, and convalescent. They have schools run by volunteers to educate street children, they run soup kitchens, as well as many other services as per the communities' needs. They have 19 homes in Kolkata (Calcutta) alone which include homes for women, for orphaned children, and for the dying; an AIDS hospice, a school for street children, and a leper colony. These services are provided to people regardless of their religion or social caste.In 1990, Mother Teresa asked to resign as head of the Missionaries, but was soon voted back in as Superior General. On March 13, 1997, six months before Mother Teresa's death, Sister Mary Nirmala

Joshi was selected the new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity.[edit]Foundation

In October 1957 Mother Teresa received Vatican permission to start her own order, which the Vatican originally labeled as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, but which later became known as the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in Mother Teresa's words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small community with 12 members in Calcutta, and today it has over 4,500 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe and Australia.

2005 Image of Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Kolkata.In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her congregation to other countries. The congregation started to grow rapidly, with new homes opening all over the globe. The congregation's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including

Albania. In addition, the first home of the Missionaries of Charity in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries and today is assisted by over one million co-workers worldwide.A 2005 article in the popular German Stern weekly quoted a witness account according to which the order received about US$50 million a year in donations on its New York account alone.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta - My Dedication to Missionaries of Charity

She Powerful Missionary The World has ever seen is Blessed Mother Teresa. She was the greatest gift from Godto people who had no one to help. Mother tried to give all support to people who were suffering from all sorts of diseases in teh streets of Calcutta. I am a true believer of Mother Teresa and i am writing all about this as today is one of the memorable days in my life Septemper 5 th. I have visited a Missionary centre today,where i saw that missionaries were getting ready for Holy Mass in the memories of Mother Teresa who has left this world on September 5, 1997. I also say small babies,new borns who were thrown away by their parents soon after they were born. I took one baby in my hand and that baby became very happy. All the activities she had started in this world is continuing today also,providing help to Children and aged. Let us Today pray with All well wishers in the whole world and every one should take oath to help the poor and suffering all over the world.

"On the happy occasion of your forthcoming Birthday, I join all the Missionaries of Charity in thanking Almighty God for the witness of your religious consecration and your untiring service of the poorest of the poor. As a pledge of strength and joy in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing."   - Pope John Paul II    April 22, 1996.          

"At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in.’  

Hungry not only for bread-but hungry for love. 

Naked not only for clothing-but naked of human dignity and respect. 

Homeless not only for want of a room of bricks-but homeless because of rejection. 

This is Christ in distressing disguise."

In 1952 the first Home for the Dying was opened in space made available by the City of Calcutta. Over the years, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. Mother Teresa created many homes for the dying and the unwanted from Calcutta to New York to Albania. She was one of the pioneers of establishing homes for AIDS victims. For more than 45 years, Mother Teresa comforted the poor, the dying, and the unwanted around the world. 

In 1966, the Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded. Homes began to open in Rome, Tanzania, and Australia. In 1971, the first home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York.  

Mother Teresa gained worldwide acclaim with her tireless efforts on behalf of world peace. Her work brought her numerous humanitarian awards, including : the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. In receiving this award, Mother Teresa revolutionized the award ceremony. She insisted on a departure from the ceremonial banquet and asked that the funds, $6,000 be

donated to the poor in Calcutta. This money would permit her to feed hundreds for a year.  

She is stated to have said that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world’s needy.  

Beginning in 1980, homes began to spring-up for drug addicts, prostitutes, battered women, and more orphanages and schools for poor children around the world. In 1985, Mother Teresa established the first hospice for AIDS victims in New York. Later homes were added in San Francisco and Atlanta. Mother Teresa was awarded Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award.  

In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her native Albania (know known as Serbia) and opened a home in Tirana. By this year, there were 168 homes established in India.  

On February 3, 1994 at a National Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, in Washington, DC, Mother Teresa challenged the audience on such topics as family life and abortion. She said, "Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Give the child to me."  

Mother Teresa traveled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. Her zeal and works of mercy knew no boundaries. In November of 1996, Mother Teresa received the honorary U.S. citizenship.

THE DEATH OF MOTHER

The African National Congress has learnt with a sense of deep shock and sadness of the passing away of Mother Theresa on Friday 5 September.

Her death is a loss to the entire humanity and her absence will be deeply missed in our efforts to build international peace, a just, caring and equitable world order.

Humanity deserves people of the calibre of Mother Theresa whose life commitment was to the poorest of the poor and the peaceful co-existence among peoples of the world.

We express our hope that her noble legacy will not be in vain but will find fertile ground among nations of the world in their endeavour to create a better life for all.

The ANC is of the conviction that the current efforts to create peace, nation building and reconciliation among our people is inspired by the ideals of among other Mother Theresa.

The ANC expresses its deepest condolences to members of her community, the church, family, friends and colleagues during these trying moments of their lives.

Mother Teresa: "Do It Anyway"

 The verses below reportedly were written on the wall of Mother Teresa's home for children in Calcutta, India, and are widely attributed to her. 

Some sources say that the words below were written on the wall in Mother Teresa's own room.  In any case, their association with Mother Teresa and

the Missionaries of Charity has made them popular worldwide, expressing as they do, the spirit in which

they lived their lives. 

They seem to be based on a composition originally by Kent Keith, but much of the second half has been re-written in a more spiritual way.  Both versions are

shown below.

___________________________________________

1. The version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa's home for

children in Calcutta:

              People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

            If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

            If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

           If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

            What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

            If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

            The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

         Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

         In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa

____________________________

2. The Original Version:

The Paradoxical Commandments

by Dr. Kent M. Keith

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.Give the world the best you have anyway.

HER WORDS

A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from his love. Purity, chastity, and virginity created a special beauty in Mary that attracted God’s attention. He showed his great love for the world by giving Jesus to her.

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family.

Find them.Love them.

Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Quotes of Mother Teresa"Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet especially your family. Be holy – let us pray."

"I once picked up a woman from a garbage dump and she was burning with fever; she was in her last days and her only lament was: ‘My son did this to me.’ I begged her: You must forgive your son. In a moment of madness, when he was not himself, he did a thing he regrets. Be a mother to him, forgive him. It took me a long time to make her say: ‘I forgive my son.’ Just before she died in my arms, she was able to say that with a real forgiveness. She was not concerned that she was dying. The breaking of the heart was that her son did not want her. This is something you and I can understand."

"When once a chairman of a multinational company came to see me, to offer me a property in Bombay, he first asked: ‘Mother, how do you manage your budget?" I asked him who had sent him here. He replied: ‘I felt an urge inside me.’ I said: other people like you come to see me and say the same. It was clear God sent you, Mr. A, as He sends Mr. X, Mrs. Y, Miss Z, and they provide the material means we need for our work. The grace of God is what moved

you. You are my budget. God sees to our needs, as Jesus promised. I accepted the property he gave and named it Asha Dan (Gift of Hope).

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

"Like Jesus we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. The joy of the Lord is our strength."

"There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls - 30 families are Catholics and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs—all different religions. But they all come to our prayers."

"There are so many religions and each one has its different ways of following God. I follow Christ:Jesus is my God,Jesus is my Spouse,Jesus is my Life,Jesus is my only Love,Jesus is my All in All;Jesus is my everything."

Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their

daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy.I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing. Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a littleChild, you receive me.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa 

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. Mother Teresa 

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Mother Teresa 

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. Mother Teresa 

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise. Mother Teresa 

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own. Mother Teresa 

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. Mother Teresa 

God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try. Mother Teresa 

Good works are links that form a chain of love. Mother Teresa 

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. Mother Teresa 

I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness. Mother Teresa 

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. Mother Teresa 

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. Mother Teresa 

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God. Mother Teresa 

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa 

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa 

If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to

be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa 

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa 

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa 

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa 

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. Mother Teresa 

Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa 

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen. Mother Teresa 

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. Mother Teresa 

It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy. Mother Teresa 

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount

of love that is put into them that matters. Mother Teresa 

Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world. Mother Teresa 

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa 

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa 

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa 

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa 

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa 

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. 

Mother Teresa 

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa 

Loneliness is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa 

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa 

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa 

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa 

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus. Mother Teresa 

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. Mother Teresa 

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them. Mother Teresa 

Peace begins with a smile. Mother Teresa 

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. Mother Teresa 

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience. Mother Teresa 

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. Mother Teresa 

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between. Mother Teresa 

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. Mother Teresa 

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it. Mother Teresa 

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the

feeling of being unloved. Mother Teresa 

The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done. Mother Teresa 

There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those. Mother Teresa 

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible. Mother Teresa 

There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. Mother Teresa 

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use. Mother Teresa 

We are all pencils in the hand of God. Mother Teresa 

We can do no great things, only small things with great love. Mother Teresa 

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. Mother Teresa 

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. Mother Teresa 

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. Mother Teresa 

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. Mother Teresa 

We, the unwilling,led by the unknowing,are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much,for so long,with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing. Mother Teresa 

Books By Mother Teresa

A Simple Path - Author: Mother Teresa, Lucinda Vardey (Compiler)

Mother Teresa has quietly but effectively devoted her life to the world's disadvantaged, spreading her message of hope from the slums of India to AIDS clinics in the United States. In this extraordinary and stimulating book, Mother Teresa shows readers how to attain a strong clarity of purpose that will have a positive effect on the world around them.

The Joy in Loving: A Guide to Daily Living - Author: Mother Teresa, Jaya Chaliha (Compiler), Edward Le Joly (Compiler)

A treasury of meditations, prayers, and reflections from Mother Teresa, one for each day of the year.

My Life for the Poor: Mother Teresa of Calcutta - Author: Mother Teresa

In this collection of formal and informal interviews Mother Teresa tells the story of her life.

A Term Paper

Of Indian Ethos and Values

On Importance Tenets from Christianity

SUBMITTED BY

DIVYA P SURTIMBA – IDIV – A

ROLL NO - 56

GIDC Rajju Shroff ROFELInstitute of Management Studies

(GRIMS), Vapi(2008-2009)