EVERYONE who met Mother Teresa admits that she was a living saint, a woman of God.
She was a beautiful combination of compassionate love and tenderness on one hand, confidence and determination on the other. She was deeply religious – a woman of faith and prayer, who expressed her love for God in her love for the poor in a heroic way.
Remembering the few days in September 1995 that I spent with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, ‘the angel of the poor’, was really an experience and inspiration for me for the missionary activities that I was involved with in India.
A mother ‘humble’ in heart and ‘simple’ in life, she loved everyone, and served the poorest of the poor without limitations and very unselfishly.
Calcutta was once India’s most beautiful and prosperous city, but after India and Pakistan separated in 1947 and the India-Pakistan war broke out, refugees flowed like a river into the city.
After a drought and then massive flooding in 1971 and 1972 many impoverished farmers arrived in the city, and large areas became instant slums. Slum dwellers and street people continued to multiply seemingly without end.
Mother Teresa left the Loreto Convent with permission to face the hard realities of the slums of Calcutta. Keeping in mind her special call within the call to serve the poor, she adopted Indian dress, the sari, simple food and the lifestyle of the poor.
Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity lived the same life as the poor, identifying themselves totally with the forsaken. The conviction that the poorer the poor are, the more they represent Christ, turned Mother Teresa and her order into radicals.
For Mother Teresa and the sisters of the mother house, morning starts with meditation and Mass at 4.30am while the city is still asleep. During the first two hours of prayer in the morning the nuns draw strength and courage from the Holy Eucharist and Word of God. Their daily life is disciplined, and after a simple breakfast, they begin their duties like cooking, washing and working in the leprosy centres and other centres of need.
Those receiving care, were found lying on the roadside and although seriously ill, were rejected by the hospitals because they were poor. The hands of the sisters washing their bodies and dressing them with clean clothes, heal the hearts of those abandoned and rejected people. Volunteers from India and around the world still spend a few days in these centres doing some of this work.
Once a reporter asked Mother Teresa ‘what inspired you to start your work, and has kept you going for so many years?’
For Mother, one word was used to sum up her whole life – ‘Jesus’. ‘Whatever I have done is like a drop of water in a mighty ocean. What I have to do is more than what I have done.’
Mother Teresa was bestowed many awards in recognition for her work.
In 1961 the Government of India awarded Mother Teresa the ‘Padmashri’. In 1971 she received the Peace Award from Pope Paul VI, and in 1972, the Good Samaritan Award and in the same year, the Nehru Award for International Understanding.
In 1973, she won the Templeton Award from Prince Philip. To crown it all, she won the greatest of awards, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
She was awarded in 1980 the highest civilian honour of India, the Bharat Ratna.
She was called back for eternal reward from God on September 5, 1997. Her last earthly journey was poignantly secular. The state funeral showcased the best traditions of Indian secularism.
Representatives of Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist Sikh and Zorastrian faiths joined together to pray for the Mother. With the Christian concept of Salvation, the Hindu Moksha, the Islamic Khuda Bakshe and the Buddhist Nirvana, everyone asked God for peace for the departed soul.
Blessed Mother Teresa is already a ‘saint’ in the hearts of all in India. For Indians, Mahatma Ghandhi is the Father of India – another apostle of peace, and now Mother Teresa of Calcutta is the ‘Queen of the Poor’ and ‘Mother of India’, and a Blessed mother for the world and the universal Church.
Fr Emmanuel Sebastian is a priest of the Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and is working in Gympie parish.
