Blessed Teresa of Kolkata - (1910-1997)
Mother
Teresa of Kolkata, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for
her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003.
Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order
she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the
congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an
order of priests.
Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part
of the Ottoman Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the
three children who survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably,
and her father's construction business thrived. But life changed
overnight following his unexpected death.
During her years in
public school Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed a
strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the
Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her
mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life.
The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling,
India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of
service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Kolkata, where
she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But
she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty, the
suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people.
In 1946,
while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa
heard what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was
clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among
them.” She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of
Loreto and, instead, to “follow Christ into the slums to serve him among
the poorest of the poor.”
After receiving permission to leave
Loreto, establish a new religious community and undertake her new work,
she took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Kolkata,
where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children.
Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian
woman) she soon began getting to know her neighbors—especially the poor
and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits.
The work
was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to
join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of
the Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing,
supplies, the use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Kolkata gave Mother
Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the
destitute. As the Order expanded, services were also offered to orphans,
abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging and street people.
For
the next four decades Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the
poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed
the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of
Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home.
No comments:
Post a Comment