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Our land is definitely blessed by God. We are a Union of 28 different states and 7 Union territories each having its own language, culture, life style. Our land is gifted with a rich heritage, culture and moral values. I take immense pleasure in writing about Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa was an Albanian Catholic Nun who devoted her life for the service of the poor. She was born on August 27, 1910 in Albania. Her real name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was the founder of Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. She was honored by the Republic of India in 1980 which she got the Bharat Ratna title. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. At the time of her death, her Charity Home was operating 610 missions in 123 different countries. According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister. We should be proud that lived a person in our country who lived her entire life for the betterment of our lives and died for the purity of cross.
She took her first religious vows as a nun on May 24, 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Therese de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries. She took her solemn vows on May 14, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Eastern Calcutta. Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border, adopted Indian citizenship, and ventured out into the slums. Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies.
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Mother Teresa wrote in her diary:-
"Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and does whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come."
Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. In her own words she wrote that she cares for all, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, 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". It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta. Today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, charity centers worldwide and cares for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor, the homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine. As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, and a haven for orphans and homeless youth.
In 1982, at the height of 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 traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients. As the USSR during its last days had a lot of openness, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work".
Pope John Paul II greets Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997. She was given a state funeral by the Indian Government.
Following Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Since then there is a title of "Blessed" given to Mother Teresa.
Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States honors Mother Teresa.
There are many true life incidents. One such was Jim's experience while meeting Mother Teresa in an airplane. Jim Castle was tired when he boarded his plane in Ohio. The 45-year-old management consultant had put on a week long series of business meetings and seminars and now he sank gratefully into his seat ready for the flight home to Kansas City, Missouri.
As more passengers entered, the place hummed with conversation, mixed with the sound of bags being stowed. Then, suddenly, people fell silent. Jim craned his head to see what was happening and his mouth dropped open.
Walking up the aisle were two nuns clad in simple white habits bordered in blue. He recognized the familiar face of one at once, the wrinkled skin and the eyes warmly intent. This was a face he has often seen in newscasts and on the cover of TIME Magazine.
The two nuns halted, and Jim realized that his seat companion was going to be Mother Teresa! As the last few passengers settled in, Mother Teresa and her companion pulled out rosaries. Each decade of the beads was a different color, Jim noticed.
The decades represented various areas of the world, Mother Teresa told him later, and added, “I pray for the poor and dying on each continent.”
The airplane taxied to the runway and the two women began to pray, their voices a low murmur. Though Jim considered himself not a very religious Catholic who went to church mostly out of habit, inexplicably he found himself joining in. By the time they murmured the final prayer, the plane had reached cruising altitude. Mother Teresa turned toward him. For the first time in his life, Jim understood what people meant when they spoke of a person possessing an “aura”.
As she gazed at him, a sense of peace filled him; he could no more see it than he could see the wind but he felt it, just as surely as he felt a warm summer breeze.
“Young man,” she inquired, “do you say the rosary often?”
“No, not really,” he admitted. She took his hand, while her eyes probed his. Then she smiled. “Well, you will now.” And she dropped her rosary into his palm.
An hour later Jim entered the Kansas City airport where he was met by his wife, Ruth. “What in the world?” Ruth asked when she noticed the rosary in his hand. They kissed and Jim described his encounter. Driving home, he said. “I feel as if I met a true sister of God.”
Nine months later Jim and Ruth visited Connie, a friend of theirs for several years.
Connie confessed that she’d been told she had ovarian cancer. “The doctor says it’s a tough case,” said Connie, “but I’m going to fight it. I won’t give up.” Jim clasped her hand. Then, after reaching into his pocket, he gently twined Mother Teresa’s rosary around her fingers. He told her the story and said, “Keep it with you Connie. It may help.”
Although Connie wasn’t Catholic, her hand closed willingly around the small plastic beads. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I hope I can return it.”
More than a year passed before Jim saw Connie again. This time her face was glowing, she hurried toward him and handed him the rosary. “I carried it with me all year,” she said. “I’ve had surgery and have been on chemotherapy, too. Last month, the doctors did second-look surgery, and the tumor’s gone. Completely!” Her eyes met Jim’s. “I knew it was time to give the rosary back.”
In the fall of 1987, Ruth’s sister, Liz, fell into a deep depression after her divorce. She asked Jim if she could borrow the rosary, and when he sent it, she hung it over her bedpost in a small velvet bag. “At night I held on to it, just physically held on. I was so lonely and afraid,” she says,”yet when I gripped that rosary, I felt as if I held a loving hand.”
Gradually, Liz pulled her life together, and she mailed the rosary back. “Someone else may need it,” she said.
Then one night in 1988, a stranger telephoned Ruth. She’d heard about the rosary from a neighbor and asked if she could borrow it to take to the hospital where her mother lay in a coma. The family hoped the rosary might help their mother die peacefully.
A few days later, the woman returned the beads. “The nurses told me a coma patient can still hear,” she said, “so I explained to my mother that I had Mother Teresa’s rosary and that when I gave it to her she could let go; it would be all rosary in her hand.
Right away, we saw her face relax. The lines smoothed out until she looked so peaceful, so young.” The woman’s voice caught. “A few minutes later she was gone.”
Fervently, she gripped Ruth’s hands. “Thank you.”
Statue of Mother Teresa in Mexico.
Is there special power in those humble beads? Or is the power of the human spirit simply renewed in each person who borrows the rosary? Jim only knows that requests continue to come, often unexpectedly. He always responds though, whenever he lends the rosary, “When you’re through needing it, send it back. Someone else may need it.”
Jim’s own life has changed, too, since his unexpected meeting on the airplane. When he realized Mother Teresa carries everything she owns in a small bag, he made an effort to simplify his own life. “I try to remember what really counts - not money or titles or possessions, but the way we love others,” he says.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU ABUNDANTLY, MAY MOTHER MARY ASK HER SON JESUS TO SHOWER YOU WITH GRACES.
MAY GOD BLESS OUR REPUBLIC OF INDIA.
Every sacrifice has a fruitful reward. Every failure has a second chance. We only have to be strong through God’s grace and persevere in life’s many tests!
May GOD bless you always.
Always your friend,
-Krishna Kumar.S
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