Mother Teresa (Albania-India)
In 1963, the Missionaries of Charity had a new branch: the Missionary Brothers of Charity was formed. It was headed up by Father Andrew, an Australian Jesuit.
It all started with some young people helping the nuns to move the sick from the streets into the shelters for the dying, to unload heavy things, to go out to the streets at night with food for the homeless and the hungry. Many of them wanted to devote their lives to serving the poor. The Missionary Brothers of Charity quickly spread and in the first years acquired extraordinary popularity in Europe. In Paris, where many people live and sometimes die in the streets, a shelter for the poor of the Missionary Brothers of Charity soon appeared. Brothers of this order of Charity give the same vows as the sisters.
In 1964, Mother Teresa was introduced to Pope Paul VI. Amazed at the results of her work, the Pope gave her a luxurious limousine. Mother Teresa sold the car, and used the money to build a house for mentally handicapped people. Mother Teresa received permission from the Pope to open missions of the Order of Missionaries of Charity not only in India, but also in other places around the world.
Since that time, the “expansion” of the order around the world begins. The centres of the order were opened in Venezuela (1965), Ceylon (1967), Italy, Australia and Tanzania (1968), England (1970), Bangladesh (1972), Cuba (1986), and other countries.
From the first days of the Order of Missionaries of Charity, its members had some voluntary helpers — volunteers, or so-called co-workers. Coworkers are divided into two categories: active and passive, or “suffering coworkers.” Mother Teresa said about the work of the coworkers: “What they do may not seem very significant, but love gives their actions an importance.” A coworker is ready to share his or her warmth and time with a person who wants to be “someone for someone”.
Here are a few examples of good deeds of active coworkers. A young married couple, living solitary on a farm in Ireland, decided to help every random visitor who knocked on their door. One day roaming gypsies came to them. The whole camp. The spouses fed everyone and even arranged them to spend the night in their house. In gratitude for the hospitality, the gypsies sang and danced for the hosts of the farm.
One paralyzed coworker, confined to a wheelchair, hosts radio programs about the order of Mother Teresa. Listeners of the program donate money to the order’s fund.
A lady in England, working at a factory, takes home a blind woman from the nursery for the disabled for her entire vacation.
In Hungary, a woman every day after her work goes to help a sickly old woman who lives next door.
A large group of young people in Sweden during their vacation helps the sisters of the Order to care for the sick children, and help the elderly people in their households.
“Suffering” or sick coworkers are people who are so sick that they cannot live without someone’s help. How then do they participate in the work of the order? They pray. Each sister of the order has her own “spiritual godmother,” who prays for her and suffers for her. The suffering coworkers, having invisible ties with the missionaries of the Order of sisters of charity, are rescued from the pains of loneliness, and do not feel abandoned. Here are some excerpts from the letters of the sick coworkers expressing their joy of being connected to the sisters of the Order.
“I heartily thank you for your letter, it brought me joy and peace. Praying for you, I feel blessed, because even in the embrace of my disease I can be useful to you and to God.”
“With all my heart I am attached to you in my spirit and prayer. The thought that I, being paralyzed, can still be with you, helps me to live on.”
“It happened so that I lost my health, my ability to move, my family, and my home. I was left alone, without hope and consolation, but the fact that I can support You with my prayers and sufferings allowed me to forget about myself. God’s miraculous love descended upon me. Now I can give this love to other people — those around me.”
Missionary sisters are happy to have such “spiritual patronage”. This is what they write to their “spiritual godmothers”: “Your sufferings and your prayers help me to serve people with patience and love. They help me to do the will of God. Thank you.” “Your sufferings and prayers are necessary so that our people will have their faith restored.” “You have been given to me as a special gift by the Lord. You are a great happiness in my life.”
When the network of the Missionaries of Charity began to spread around the world, Mother Teresa credited it to the sick and suffering coworkers, who helped her and other sisters by their prayers to bring God’s love into the world. She wrote: “You see, this is the fruit of your endurance, it’s the worth of your labour. Pray more fervently, endure the sufferings for Christ’s sake. Help us to make people love Him even more.”
Although Mother Teresa herself considered her work a “drop in the ocean,” her fame and recognition in the world grew. In 1971, Mother Teresa received the Vatican Peace Prize named after Pope John XXIII, as well as the “Good Samaritan” award in Boston, USA.
In October 1971, Mother Teresa defended her thesis on theology in Washington. A year later, she was awarded by the Indian government the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding.
In 1975, Indira Gandhi presented her with a free ticket, allowing to use any type of transport for trips around the territory of India.
In 1976, Mother Teresa sounded a call to choose among the sick and suffering coworkers the people who would pray for Pope John Paul II. To accomplish this task, one person was chosen in 32 countries of the world. On May 17, 1982, John Paul II had a special audience with the head of the sick and suffering coworkers, who handed His Holiness a list of those who prayed and offered the sacrifice of their sufferings for him. The Pope granted them his special blessing.
On October 17, 1979, Mother Teresa became a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The decision to give her this award aroused dissatisfaction on the part of those who believed that Mother Teresa, while helping the needy, did nothing for the cause of peace.
However, the representative of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, John Sanness, said in his speech: “Mother Teresa has personally succeeded in bridging the gulf that exists between the rich nations and the poor nations… She can plant the seeds of good in every person… If this were not the case, the world would be deprived of hope, and work for peace would have little meaning. Mother Teresa deserves Nobel’s Peace Prize because she promotes peace in the most fundamental manner, by her confirmation of the inviolability of human dignity.”
Mother Teresa accepted the award “in the name of the hungry, naked, homeless … all those who see neither help nor care.” Each Nobel Prize laureate at the ceremony should deliver a speech, which is called a Nobel lecture.
In her Nobel lecture, Mother Teresa spoke of Christian love — the driving force behind her work; it is love and respect for every human being that are the condition for the universal peace. She also spoke about her view on abortion and other methods of contraception, which was criticized by many: “In abortion I see the greatest threat to the world, because it is a real war, a murder committed by the mother.”
“I accept this award in the name of the poor, because by giving me this award, the great of the world recognize the existence of the poor on earth,” Mother Teresa said. She refused to attend the solemn dinner on the occasion of awarding her the prize. “I cannot indulge in gluttony when so many people starve and die in the world.”
The Government of India demanded that 80% of the money received by Mother Teresa be given to the state. Mother Teresa ignored this demand. The entire Nobel Prize (800 thousand Swedish kronor), she spent on the needs of her order — to construct the shelters for the poor and those suffering from leprosy.
One day, while making a comparison between the Western countries and India, Mother Teresa said: “Leprosy is really a very serious illness and brings unbearable suffering, but they are incomparable to the pains of the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The extreme loneliness of many well-to-do people from Western countries is worse than any decease. One day in New York a very rich man came to one of our centres and told me: “Come visit me, please. I’m almost completely blind, and my wife, probably, will soon go mad. My wife and I are dying of loneliness. I would give away everything, if only I could always hear someone’s voice near me.” This person lived in a mansion and had a huge fortune, but he was much unhappier than any of the lepers in our shelter.”
When there was a new terrible disease — AIDS, Mother Teresa began to create shelters, hospitals, and hospices for patients with the “plague of the 20th century.” The first church shelter for patients with AIDS was opened on the Christmas eve of 1985 in New York. At the request of Mother Teresa, three people dying of AIDS were released from prison and placed in a new shelter.
Soon in New York a second shelter for people with AIDS was opened. Mother Teresa also took upon herself to care for the sick children born of infected parents. “The disease inherited by these poor children has made their life a torture. We must do everything possible to alleviate their sufferings so that they understand that God loves them, and that the heavier their torment is, the more He loves them.”
World renown and respect did not change the attitude of Mother Teresa to what she considered her duty. She personally opened up new branches and missions of her Order in different countries. By herself or at the request of the Pope she went to the zones of natural calamities and wars. She visited Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; visited Ethiopia during the drought; Guatemala after the earthquake; the Soviet Union (Chernobyl and Spitak); Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During her trips, Mother Teresa never remained just a bystander. She helped people: in Beirut, ruined by bombs, she collected and miraculously rescued from it sixty mutilated and sick little children; in Spitak she opened a Charity home for the victims of the earthquake.
A Russian journalist Georgy Rozhnov recalls his meeting with Mother Teresa after the earthquake in Leninakan and Spitak: “We found out that Mother Teresa is in the Palace of the Council for Religious Affairs. At the entrance there are crowds of people: one can hear groans, curses, and weeping. On the steps, soldiers with automatic rifles, monks, and priests are keeping the crowds back, and we walk into the room where Mother Teresa promised to give us a short interview. Then comes in a small, thin, old woman in white clothes. I fix my eyes upon her, and I feel the tears coming to my eyes. It is her smile, and her look. I ask her: “Holy mother, bless me.” She comes closer, and I feel how warm and strong her hand is on my head. How strong the hand is that I reverently kiss! She walks past us quickly, stops at the doorstep and raises a crucifix. And thousands of people, who just a minute ago were absorbed in their woes, bow down their knees.”
When the world learned about the massive rapes in Bosnia, which turned into almost a weapon of war, Mother Teresa went to visit women’s hospitals. She asked the violated Bosnian women not to have abortions. “Give them to me if you do not want to raise them yourselves. I have enough love for all rejected children,” Mother Teresa said.
From the very beginning of her charitable work, Mother Teresa flatly refused to have any talk about politics. She said her business is to help those who need help. She herself did not refuse any help that was offered to her.
The main source of funding for the Order are donations from individuals, companies, public and international organizations, government agencies. Among the regular sponsors of the Missionaries of Charity were Princess Diana, so much loved by everyone, and Jean-Claude Duvalier — a cruel dictator of Haiti. Significant sums were donated to the Order by Charles Keating, whose financial schemes left thousands of American pensioners penniless, and by newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, who devastated the retirement fund of his employees.
Those, from whom the money was stolen, appealed to Mother Teresa many times asking her to return this dirty money. Each time a decisive refusal followed: “They donated this money from a pure heart not to me, but to the cause I am engaged in. I cannot give it away.” The Order of the Missionaries of Charity combines the incompatible. It exists simultaneously as an ascetic monastic society (the only personal belongings the sisters have — are two plain saris), and as a legal entity with a multi-billion dollar budget.
According to unofficial estimates, the Order’s budget is over 10-50 billion dollars per year. As of 1997, there were 400 branches of the Order of Missionaries of Charity in 111 countries of the world, 700 charity homes in 126 countries; medical care was provided regularly to 500 thousand families, medical care was rendered to 250 thousand people during that year in medical institutions, leprosariums, clinics for patients with AIDS. In 1997, there were 20,000 children taught in schools affiliated with the Order’s branches.
Mother Teresa herself never even had a bank account. The sisters of the order always lived and continue to live an extremely ascetic life. There is one rule, and it concerns everyone: the sisters should not have any personal or joint capital.
One day a businessman asked Mother Teresa for her business card. She replied that she had no need of business cards, but later, having thought about this instance, she got business cards with the famous words printed on them: “The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.”
Mother Teresa did not recognize washing machines and other benefits of civilization. Sisters of the Order must do all the work with their hands, as poor people do.
All the personal belongings of a sister are easily placed in a small bag: these are two white saris with three blue stripes, and three white cotton habits with long sleeves. If she has to move to another place, she can pack in less than ten minutes. The rules of the order require that a sister’s home be utterly modest, and as much as possible it should resemble a poor person’s house.
Despite strict asceticism, stipulated by the rules of the Missionaries of Charity, the Order is very popular all over the world. Today it is the only religious order on earth, with a greater number of those wishing to enter into it than the congregation can accept. Young men and women of all races and nationalities, following the example of Mother Teresa, leave their cosy world to take up the difficult path that she paved.
If a young woman wants to join the Order of Mother Teresa, she must first simply observe the life and work of the sisters for a while in order to be sure that her choice was right. If after that she is not disappointed, and she firmly decides to join the order, then she has to complete two years of preparation. During these two years she works with the sisters, who have already taken all the vows and joined the congregation. She can be sent to help the poor, or to take care of the sick in a home for the dying, or to collect donations. During her apprenticeship, the new young sister herself assesses her abilities and dedication to the cause, which she is going to devote herself to for the rest of her life.
When her two-year training comes to an end, she takes the final vows, according to the rules of the Order of Missionaries of Charity.
But the question arises: who leads the order? Mother Teresa said: “I am guided by Providence. Our statute says: “We absolutely rely on Holy Providence. We are not ashamed to ask for alms, for Christ did it also, and live on alms, helping the poor and the sick. We receive funds from thousands of different people and companies, but we refuse grants, loans and contributions that are regular, that is, weekly, monthly or annual. Regular inflow of funds, of course, would help us to implement many plans. However, by refusing this, we want to prove that we rely entirely on Providence alone.”
To adhere to this biblical ideal, Mother Teresa taught her sisters never to think about what will happen tomorrow. The rule of the Order of Missionaries of Charity says: “Only the Almighty Lord can make plans; for “yesterday” has already passed, and “tomorrow” has not yet come. We have only “today” to love Jesus and serve Him.
What does dependence on Divine Providence mean? It is a firm and living belief that God will help us. He can help us, because He is almighty. He will help us, because He promises it in many portions of the Holy Scriptures: “Ask and you shall find” (Mark 11:24). And God always fulfils His promises. St. Augustine said: “How can you doubt that God will do good for you if He took upon Himself the evil for all people?”
God cares for all living things: He feeds young crows who can only croak, He cares for the birds of the heavens, who do not sow, do not reap, and do not gather in barns. He cherishes beautiful flowers in the fields. God will give more to people, because He created us in His image and likeness, because He loves us. Examples of the manifestation of His love and care are numerous. Here are some of them.
Every day we cook for nine thousand people. One day one of the sisters approached me and said: “Mother, we ran out of food, what will we give today to the poor?” I had nothing to say to her. Suddenly, at about 9 o’clock in the morning, we heard a noise of the engine, and a van loaded with food arrived into our yard. We did not ask anyone for help. Where did it come from? It turned out that on that day all the schools in the city were closed. Why did this happen, no one knew in all of Calcutta. Every student receives a piece of bread and a glass of milk at the expense of the state every day. As the schools were closed, all the bread and milk intended for schoolchildren were sent to us.
You see, God closed all the schools. He did not allow the poor, who every day come to us for food, go away with nothing. Probably, for the first time in their life, the people under our care had so much wonderful delicious bread. This is how God’s concern for us manifests itself. He treasures everyone. I often recall a case that also occurred here, in Calcutta. Once a young man came to me, and he held a prescription in his hands. The man was very troubled. “My only child is dying, he urgently needs a medicine. I was told at the hospital that this medicine can only be obtained abroad,” said the man, and there was despair in his voice.
We talked with him on the porch of the home of charity. Just at that time one of our employees was passing by. He was carrying a basket of medicines. I casually glanced at the basket. Do you know what lay in it at the top? It is hard to believe, but it was the very medicine that the father of a dying child despaired to find in India. Had the medicine been inside the basket, I would not have noticed it. If this guy with a basket had passed by a little earlier or a little later, I would not have seen the medicine. But God focused all of His tenderness and care on the sick child, and sent this basket of drugs just in time. God wanted to save the child, so the right medicine was on top.
I am grateful to God for His care and love. He loves us. Every child — both from a rich and from a very poor family — is a child of the Creator. As the Scripture says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you, because you are the work of my hands.” When you feel lonely, unwanted, sick, and forgotten, remember that He loves you.
Jesus came into our world with only one purpose. He brought us the Glad Tidings, saying that God loves us, that God is love, that He loves you, and He loves me. God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to us. Jesus gave all that He had, His life for you and me. He died on the cross because He loved us. When we look at the crucifixion, we understand how much He loves us: you and me, and your family, and all other families. He loves us. And He came to teach us how to love.”
Mother Teresa, among other twenty Nobel Peace Prize laureates, appealed to the United Nations to proclaim the period from 2000 to 2010 a Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence.
They proposed that non-violence be taught at every level in our societies during this decade in order “to make the children of the world aware of the real, practical meaning and benefits of non-violence in their daily lives, in order to reduce the violence, and consequent suffering, perpetrated against them and humanity in general.” Among the laureates who joined the appeal were such prominent public and state figures as Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Betty Williams, Carlos Felipe Ximens Belo, Dalai Lama, Elie Weisel, Frederik Willem de Klerk, Jose Ramos-Horta, Joseph Rotblat, Lech Walesa, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Norman Borlaug, Oscar Arias Sancez, Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
In 1987, the Pope John Paul II asked Mother Teresa to open one of her centres in the Vatican. Understandably, she agreed. On June 17, in the presence of Teresa, he personally laid the first stone in the foundation of the shelter of the Order of Missionaries of Charity for homeless women, bearing the name “Dono di Maria” — “The Gift of Mary.”
Soon the shelter was built. Sisters from different parts of India and around the world worked in it. The poor women of Rome can now find food and shelter here, medical care and spiritual support. The centre owns a hostel for 70 people, and a refectory with all modern equipment with the capacity of one hundred people (at lunch time they also serve men), a large kitchen, rooms and a chapel for sisters, and a small hospital. During the ceremony held on June 17, the Pope said that the “Dono di Maria” shelter will be built “in the name of the Lord and in the name of His love, because it is love for Christ that should guide us all to the sincere and infinite love for our neighbour.”
Not only the dying, the sick, and the orphans need love, warmth, and care, but those who sinned much in their lives also need it. Below is the story of an American prisoner, Michael Hunter, whom Mother Teresa helped to find support in his life. This man was sentenced to death, his heart was closed for love and kindness, but Mother Teresa was able to reach through to him.