Mother Teresa endowed with Holy Soul: A Glimpse of her humanitarian Service

 On 26 August 2021, the world celebrated the birthday of a great and holy soul, selfless lady, endowed with purity in heart, who is popularly known as Mother Teresa but born as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu.

Mother Teresa is a symbol of sacrifice for the service and caring of the downtrodden people. She was born on 26 August 1910 in present-day Skopje of North Macedonia. I will not discuss here about her religion etc. but I feel her greatest religion was love and affection to others particularly to the poor echelon of the society. On other days, we have seen on TV that innocent people were killed without any fault of theirs in Kabul but Mother Teresa has shown us how to nurture helpless children and others for survival. She left her home in 1928 when she was 18 years old and came to Ireland to learn English. And later on sent to India and on 24 May, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. Among her innumerable activities few are mentioned here so that young generations are motivated. 

From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta now Kolkata, but observing the suffering and poverty outside the convent walls, she changed her mind.  In 1948 she left the convent school with proper permission from the authority and devoted herself to working among 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. She established a new sisterhood, Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa and her associates built homes for orphans, nursing homes for lepers and hospices for the terminally ill in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Mother Teresa's organization also engaged in aid work in other parts of the world. Also her role to serve the people, during Bengal Famine in 1943 and Direct Action Day, also known as the 1946 Calcutta Killings, was praiseworthy.

It may be mentioned here that, “The Missionaries of Charity, which began as a small order with 12 members in Calcutta, today 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 Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Poland, and Australia. In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa permission to expand her order to other countries. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela. Presently, the "Missionaries of Charity" has presence in more than 100 countries” (awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/mother-teresa).

Some of her activities across the world are: In 1982 during 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 travelled through the war zone to the hospital to evacuate the young patients.

Also she visited to help the hungry people in Ethiopia; radiation victims at Chernobyl and earthquake victims in Armenia.  In 1991 she went to Albania for the first time, opening a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in (wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa).  Mother Teresa’s work has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world and she has received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Bharat Ratna, the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize etc.

Although Mother Teresa left for heavenly abode on 5 September 1997 (aged 87 in Calcutta/Kolkata) but because of her great humanitarian service she is in the heart of all in the world. I offer my Pronam to her.

 Dr Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad , 27 August 2021