Mother Teresa Centenary (26-08-2010 to 25-08-2011) Massive infrastructure of love and compassion

Mother Teresa Centenary (26-08-2010 to 25-08-2011)
Massive infrastructure of love and compassion

M.G. Devasahayam
19 August 2010

Planted in a narrow, dingy street in Calcutta, nourished by the faith, compassion and commitment of Mother Teresa, the Missionaries of Charity has grown like the mustard seed of the Scriptures. At the time of Mother’s death in 1997, 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 and the order has now grown to over 4,500 members in 697 communities present in 133 countries of the world.

As the country celebrates the birth centenary of Mother Teresa, most people would be wondering what motivated this frail and diminutive woman to build and sustain a massive infrastructure of love and compassion. I found the answer during my visit to the Mother House in Kolkata in the mid-eighties.

Mother and I were conversing in the sparsely furnished “parlour’’ and I asked her the question that has been nagging me for some time. Mother took me to the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi - “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace’’ - framed on the wall of the adjacent Chapel, which has been the beacon light of Mother’s mission and pointed out the line, “For it is in giving that we receive”.

A quarter century after my close association with Mother, her core message still rings loud and clear: “Give from the bottom of your heart. Give until it hurts.” Here is a typical example as to how she lived it: “One day, while I was walking along the streets of Calcutta, a priest came up to me, asking me to give a contribution for some worthy project. That morning I had left the house with all the money I had, five rupees, which amounted to about 30 cents. During the day, I had spent four on the poor. I had only one rupee to live on the next day and the following days if something didn’t happen. Trusting in God, I gave my last rupee to that priest. In my mind I prayed, ‘Lord, I don’t have anything more, [but] I must think of You’.’’
- Mother Teresa, as told to Renzo Allegri

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on 26 August, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, she was the youngest of three surviving children of Nikola and Dronda Bojaxhiu. As a teenager, she became interested in missionary work through a youth group in her local parish called Sodality. At the age of 17, she responded to her first call of a vocation as a Catholic missionary nun. She joined an Irish order, the Sisters of Loreto, a community known for their missionary work in India. Thus began the spiritual journey of a frail, shy, and quiet woman, Mother Teresa, which took her to the pinnacle of “selfless service’’.

In today’s hedonistic world, Mother Teresa’s selflessness stands out like the star that guided the Magi to Jesus’ manger in Bethlehem. She led the way into the slums to serve the poorest of the poor. She confronted resistance from the Catholic Church to become an independent nun and start the Missionaries of Charity in India. She decided to set aside the dress she had worn during her years as a Loreto sister and wear the ordinary dress of an Indian woman: a plain white sari and sandals. She followed God’s will every moment of her life to become one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.

Theories on effective leadership have laid out numerous traits and Mother Teresa had them all. She was selfless, courageous, determined, loyal, just, dependable, and enthusiastic; she was simple, devout, humble, and honest; she endured, took the initiative, was decisive, strong, and convinced of her calling in life; she gave up family life and also a sheltered, peaceful life in the Irish order, all because she believed she could risk taking a road not taken. Mother Teresa kept the faith and moved scores of women and men, young and old to become instruments of God’s peace.

Mother Teresa did not ask for help or money; she received it. As her work earned fame around the world, money poured in from individual and corporate benefactors. She never worried about funding the many expanding activities of her order. “The Lord sends it,” she once said. “We do his work; he provides the means.”

Mother Teresa, however, drew criticism from those who believe, as George Orwell once wrote about Mahatma Gandhi, that all saints should be judged guilty until proved innocent. When criticised for accepting donations from the rich and some infamous, Mother Teresa replied that she had no moral right to refuse donations given for the poor and miserable, and she did not have an intelligence agency to ascertain the background of people who made the donation.

Mother Teresa treated everyone alike as a just leader would. She fiercely defended her beliefs and was often referred to as a religious worker. She openly admitted she was doing it for Jesus and was in love with her own religion. She once said he [Jesus] is “the Truth to be told...the Way to be walked...the Light to be lit.” She took her own advice and lived her whole life by doing it, and not by merely preaching it. She told the Truth; walked the Way; and lit the Light.

The Charter of the Society of Missionaries of Charity reads thus: “The society and all its branches, throughout India and outside India work and serve the poorest of the poor, irrespective of all castes and creed, nationality, race or place - giving the individual person whole-hearted and free service. The poorest of the poor are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, the ignorant, the captives, the crippled, the leprosy sufferers, the unloved, the alcoholics, the dying and the sick destitutes, the abandoned, the outcastes, all those who are a burden to human society, who have lost all hope and faith in life, and also every Missionary of Charity.”

This is true fulfillment of the essence of Christianity contained in the Bible’s description of the Last Judgment: “Then the King will say to those on his right hand, Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; naked and you covered me; sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me. Then the just will answer him saying ‘when did we see thee hungry, and feed thee; or thirsty and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and take thee in, or naked and clothe thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison and come to thee? And answering the King will say to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to me’.”

Mother Teresa’s whole life was dedicated to serving “the least of God’s brethren’’ and she has indeed taken “possession of the Kingdom prepared for her from the foundation of the world’’.

I had the privilege of not only knowing but working closely with the Mother in setting up one of her finest “homes’’ at Chandigarh hailed as the “City Beautiful” with its wide vistas, wider avenues, enchanting landscape and lovely gardens. Beneath the veneer of physical beauty, Chandigarh and its neighbouring areas had their share of the wretched, the poor, the unwanted, the mentally retarded, the abandoned, the lepers and the dying destitutes. The City was seeking a “soul’’ to look beyond the physical beauty, a “soul” that touched the poor and the unwanted, and a “soul” that will give meaning and content to a body that is called “beautiful”.

Shanti Dan at Chandigarh, which is the gift of Mother Teresa, has indeed become a “soul’’ to the city as evident from the kind of people’s participation in providing for the upkeep and feeding of the hundreds of inmates. In this they are finding an expression of their own inner need for loving and sharing which in essence is the “soul” that Chandigarh has been searching for.

Besides, the “home’’ has become an instrument for the “spread of God’s love and compassion’’ in and around the city. And there are hundreds of them located all over the impoverished world where the “lesser children of God’’ live. And the Mother in her true devotion and humility had made it all possible.

(The writer is a freelance contributor)