Mother Teresa - In Memory of Mother Teresa, a Great Humanitarian from Calcutta... 1910-1997

Awards from rest of the world

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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".^[44] By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary 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.^[45] 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.^[46] Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film.^[47] 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.^[48] She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976).^[49] 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.^[41] Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers, to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell, and to politicians on the right of Western politics, such as U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and United States President Ronald Reagan. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.^[30]^[41]

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees.^[41] Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978),^[50] and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).^[51]

Mother Teresa received great attention from the media, such as Time Magazine.

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute 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,^[52] 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'. ^[53]

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."^[54] The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world."^[54] 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.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The author Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics in both the United Kingdom and the United States. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product.^[42] Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.^[55]

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.^[42] Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

The German magazine Stern published a hostile 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.^[30] Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.^[55]

Global recognition and awards

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Reception in India

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.^[40] Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 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.^[41]

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.^[42] Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya 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 favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But Parvathi Menon, writing the front page tribute for 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, Menon was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so.^[41] 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".^[43]

Spiritual life

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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."^[56]

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."^[57] Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."^[58]

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.^[59] 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.^[59] 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.

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."^[60] However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday).^[61]^[45] 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." ^[62] 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.^[45] The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. ^[63] In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator, the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification.^[45]

Mother Words...

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

Mother's Letter

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http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3521905

Mother Teresa of Calcutta prays during a religious service

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Mother Teresa of Calcutta prays during a religious service in Pescara, September 20, 1977.

Pope John Paul II holds his arm around Mother Teresa

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Pope John Paul II holds his arm around Mother Teresa as they ride in the Popemobile outside the Home of the Dying in Calcutta, India, February 1986.

Entrance to Missionaries of Charity -- Calcutta

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Entrance to Missionaries of Charity

Mother Teresa in Atlanta

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Mother Teresa in Atlanta

Mother and Diana

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The 50p stamp was released on August 31 this year by Ascension Island, a United Kingdom Overseas Territory in the mid South Atlantic (a vital air base during the Falklands conflict). Produced in sheetlets of eight, the stamp depicts a photograph of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana taken when they first met in February 1992, at Mother Teresa’s convent in Rome. Their final meeting took place in June 1997, when they met privately as Princess Diana left the Missionaries of Charity house in the Bronx.

Words of Teresa

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I see God in every man. When I wash the wound of a patient of leprosy, I feel that I am serving God. Is it not a comfortable experience ?

The poor give us a lot. As compared to it, We give them far less. They have to pass the day without food, yet they do not curse anybody, they do not complain . We should show Kindness or sympathy to them. we have to learn a lot from them.

I have adopted the poverty of our poor people ,but I am grateful while getting the Nobel prize in the name of hungry, naked, homeless ,blind, patients of leprosy and helpless people. The person who feel discarded :Who could not get love from any body :Whom the society does not care for:Who are thought to be the burden on the society and who are abused by everybody,I am greatful to get this prize in the name of such persons.

Stamp for Teresa

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Stamp for Mother

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Words from Teresa

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Signature of Teresa

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Signature of Teresa

Mother Teresa

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Mother Teresa, whose original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, was born on August 26, 1910 in what is now Skopje, Macedonia. She always wrote her birthday as the 27th of August because that was the day of her baptism, which was always more important to her than her birth. For her work with the poor around the world she received the 1979 Nobel Peace

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At a White House ceremony, 1985

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

Mother Teresa at the Nobel Prize ceremony, 1979

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Missionaries of Charity

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Missionaries of Charity is a Roman Catholic religious order established in 1950, which consists of over 4,500 nuns 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 was 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 of Calcutta 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 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.

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.

10th anniversary of her death

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On September 5, 2007, Mother Teresa's feast day, Calcutta's Archbishop Lucas Sirkar said Mass for thousands of devotees to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa (attended by nuns and volunteers at Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity).

Mother Theresa...

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"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."

Mother Words --- On her life's work

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"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.'" -- Quoted as telling Prince Michael of Greece in 1996.

Mother Words --- On retirement

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"God will find another person, more humble, more devoted, more obedient to him, and the society will go on." -- Calcutta 1989, after announcing her intention to retire.

"I was expecting to be free, but God has his own plans." -- Calcutta 1990, when the sisters of her order persuaded her to withdraw her resignation.

A Legend

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Mother Words --- On abortion

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Abortion "is murder in the womb ... A child is a gift of God. If you do not want him, give him to me."

Mother Words --- On war

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"I have never been in a war before, but I have seen famine and death. I was asking (myself), 'What do they feel when they do this?' I don't understand it. They are all children of God. Why do they do it? I don't understand." -- Beirut 1982, during fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas.

"Please choose the way of peace. ... In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause." -- Letter to U.S. President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, January 1991.

Mother Words --- On the Nobel Peace Prize

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"I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of 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." -- Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, 1979.

Mother Words --- On poverty

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"I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?" -- 1974 interview.

"When I see waste here, I feel angry on the inside. I don't approve of myself getting angry. But it's something you can't help after seeing Ethiopia." -- Washington 1984.

Mother Teresa in a Calcutta orphanage, 1979.

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Mother

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Mother Teresa, whose original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, was born on August 26, 1910 in what is now Skopje, Macedonia. She always wrote her birthday as the 27th of August because that was the day of her baptism, which was always more important to her than her birth. For her work with the poor around the world she received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1928 she joined a religious order and took the name Teresa. The order immediately sent her to India. A few years later, she began teaching in Calcutta, and in 1948 the Catholic Church granted her permission to leave her convent and work among the city's poor people. She became an Indian citizen that same year. In 1950, she founded a religious order in Calcutta called the Missionaries of Charity. The order provides food for the needy and operates hospitals, schools, orphanages, youth centers, and shelters for lepers and the dying poor. It now has branches in 50 Indian cities and 30 other countries.

In addition to the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa has received other awards for her work with the needy. These awards include the 1971 Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and India's Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1972. Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997. She is sorely missed.