Mother Teresa

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Both became famous for their work in India. Mahatma Gandhi made an enormous contribution to the nation, not only by winning independence for India and establishing it as a stable democracy, but also by demonstrating that change can be achieved without violence. Mother Teresa is widely credited with having helped many thousands of the despeately poor, although her achievements appear to have been greatly exaggerated. Neverthless, the comparison is obvious - Gandhi made a far greater contribution than did Mother Teresa, and in the process was imprisoned a number of times and finally murdered.

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Mother Teresa adult life was all about taking care the poor of the poorest.

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Modern people, and most people who call themselves Christians, think that going to Church on Sunday, saying some things, and being nice to people is what it is all about. They are completely missing the mark. Those kind of things are just the tip of the iceberg. Mother Teresa helped others by loving God above all things, putting Him first in her life, and doing His Will no matter how painful it was for her, and it was very painful.

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Mother spent most of her life in a dark night with no real feeling or personal knowledge of God. This is very common with the founders of religious orders, they are strong enough in their faith to make their way through life totally depend on Faith, Hope, and Charity: the three cardinal virtues bestowed on us in Baptism. She sacrificed herself completely for God, and was called a saint and a prophet for it.

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Mother Theresa helped others the way we are all called to help others, by getting up in the morning, and taking some time to give to God first. She spend an hour in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, went to Holy Mass, received Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist, and went to confession frequently, and regularly. And, then, when she had done these things, she went out and lived her faith by seeing her God in every individual in front of her, especially the poor, the sick, the aged, and the abandoned. She served God by serving Him in them - which is nothing more nor less than she lived the Gospel with every breath in her body.

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Mother Teresa showed compassion for those who were less fortunate than she was. She gave them food, lifted their spirits, and helped them survive. She is and was considered a hero to many people. After her death, she was put on the short list for canonization, and in 2012 I believe she has already had one miracle attributed to her, and has been beatified. Of course, she loved children.

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The Church often says that the only real way to help people, the way to become a good spouse, parent, teacher, or whatever, is to become a saint. Mother Teresa believed and lived this. She helped the poor by becoming a saint.

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The various ways that she accomplished that was that she always did the Will of God even when she didn't feel as if God was there or approving of her. She cared for the poorest of the poor.

She established hospices and hospitals for the sick and dying, she started in Calcutta as she started a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, which spread throughout the world. Today the Order still cares for the poorest of the poor, the sick and dying. Mother Theresa and her sisters went out into the streets and picked up the dying homeless to bring them to her hospice. They clean them, feed them, pray with them, and serve them so that they spend their last days or hours in dignity. She and her Order treat those dying of AIDS, the lepers, the untouchables, those whom nobody else will love and care for. She saw Our Blessed Lord in everyone of them, in disguise, pleading for our help and love. She treated them as she would treat Our Blessed Lord, Himself.

She loved and helped them to survive

Historical Importance of Mother Teresa: Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic order of nuns dedicated to helping the poor. Begun in Calcutta, India, the Missionaries of Charity grew to help the poor, the dying, orphans, lepers, and AIDS sufferers in over a hundred countries. Mother Teresa's selfless effort to help those in need has caused many to regard her as a model humanitarian.

Dates: August 26, 1910 -- September 5, 1997

Mother Teresa Also Known As: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (birth name), "the Saint of the Gutters"

Helping the Sick, the Dying, the Orphaned, and the Lepers

There were literally millions of people in need in India. Droughts, the caste system, India's independence, and partition all contributed to the masses of people that lived on the streets. India's government was trying, but they could not handle the overwhelming multitudes that needed help.

While the hospitals were overflowing with patients that had a chance to survive, Mother Teresa opened a home for the dying, called Nirmal Hriday ("Place of the Immaculate Heart"), on August 22, 1952. Each day, nuns would walk through the streets and bring people who were dying to Nirmal Hriday, located in a building donated by the city of Kolkata. The nuns would bathe and feed these people and then place them in a cot. These people were given the opportunity to die with dignity, with the rituals of their faith.

In 1955, the Missionaries of Charity opened their first children's home (Shishu Bhavan), which cared for orphans. These children were housed and fed and given medical aid. When possible, the children were adopted out. Those not adopted were given an education, learned a trade skill, and found marriages.

In India's slums, huge numbers of people were infected with leprosy, a disease that can lead to major disfiguration. At the time, lepers (people infected with leprosy) were ostracized, often abandoned by their families. Because of the widespread fear of lepers, Mother Teresa struggled to find a way to help these neglected people. Mother Teresa eventually created a Leprosy Fund and a Leprosy Day to help educate the public about the disease and established a number of mobile leper clinics (the first opened in September 1957) to provide lepers with medicine and bandages near their homes. By the mid-1960s, Mother Teresa had established a leper colony called Shanti Nagar ("The Place of Peace") where lepers could live and work.

International Recognition

Just before the Missionaries of Charity celebrated its 10th anniversary, they were given permission to establish houses outside of Calcutta, but still within India. Almost immediately, houses were established in Delhi, Ranchi, and Jhansi; more soon followed.

For their 15th anniversary, the Missionaries of Charity was given permission to establish houses outside of India. The first house was established in Venezuela in 1965. Soon there were Missionaries of Charity houses all around the world.

As Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity expanded at an amazing rate, so did international recognition for her work. Although Mother Teresa was awarded numerous honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she never took personal credit for her accomplishments. She said it was God's work and that she was just the tool used to facilitate it.

Controversy

With international recognition also came critique. Some people complained that the houses for the sick and dying were not sanitary, that those treating the sick were not properly trained in medicine, that Mother Teresa was more interested in helping the dying go to God than in potentially helping cure them. Others claimed that she helped people just so she could convert them to Christianity.

Mother Teresa also caused much controversy when she openly spoke against abortion and birth control. Others critiqued her because they believed that with her new celebrity status, she could have worked to end the poverty rather than soften its symptoms.

Old and Frail

Despite the controversy, Mother Teresa continued to be an advocate for those in need. In the 1980s, Mother Teresa, already in her 70s, opened Gift of Love homes in New York, San Francisco, Denver, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for AIDS sufferers.

Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, Mother Teresa's health deteriorated, but she still traveled the world, spreading her message.

When Mother Teresa, age 87, died of heart failure on September 5, 1997, the world mourned her passing. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to see her body, while millions more watched her state funeral on television. After the funeral, Mother Teresa's body was laid to rest at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata.

When Mother Teresa passed away, she left behind over 4,000 Missionary of Charity Sisters, in 610 centers in 123 countries.

After Mother Teresa's death, the Vatican began the lengthy process of canonization. On October 19, 2003, the third of the four steps to sainthood was completed when the Pope approved Mother Teresa's beatification, awarding Mother Teresa the title "Blessed."

Overview of Mother Teresa:

Mother Teresa's task was overwhelming. She started out as just one woman, with no money and no supplies, trying to help the millions of poor, starving, and dying that lived on the streets of India. Despite others' misgivings, Mother Teresa was confident that God would provide.

Birth and Childhood

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, now known as Mother Teresa, was the third and final child born to her Albanian Catholic parents, Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, in the city of Skopje (a predominantly Muslim city in the Balkans). Nikola was a self-made, successful businessman and Dranafile stayed home to take care of the children.

When Mother Teresa was about eight years old, her father died unexpectedly. The Bojaxhiu family was devastated. After a period of intense grief, Dranafile, suddenly a single mother of three children, sold textiles and hand-made embroidery to bring in some income.

The Call

Both before Nikola's death and especially after it, the Bojaxhiu family held tightly to their religious beliefs. The family prayed daily and went on pilgrimages annually.

When Mother Teresa was 12 years old, she began to feel called to serve God as a nun. Deciding to become a nun was a very difficult decision. Becoming a nun not only meant giving up the chance to marry and have children, it also meant giving up all her worldly possessions and her family, perhaps forever.

For five years, Mother Teresa thought hard about whether or not to become a nun. During this time, she sang in the church choir, helped her mother organize church events, and went on walks with her mother to hand out food and supplies to the poor.

When Mother Teresa was 17, she made the difficult decision to become a nun. Having read many articles about the work Catholic missionaries were doing in India, Mother Teresa was determined to go there. Thus, Mother Teresa applied to the Loreto order of nuns, based in Ireland but with missions in India.

In September 1928, 18-year-old Mother Teresa said goodbye to her family to travel to Ireland and then on to India. She never saw her mother or sister again.

Becoming a Nun

It took more than two years to become a Loreto nun. After spending six weeks in Ireland learning the history of the Loreto order and to study English, Mother Teresa then traveled to India, where she arrived on January 6, 1929. After two years as a novice, Mother Teresa took her first vows as a Loreto nun on May 24, 1931.

As a new Loreto nun, Mother Teresa (known then only as Sister Teresa, a name she chose after St. Teresa of Lisieux) settled in to the Loreto Entally convent in Kolkata (previously called Calcutta) and began teaching history and geography at the convent schools.

Usually, Loreto nuns were not allowed to leave the convent; however, in 1935, 25-year-old Mother Teresa was given a special exemption to teach at a school outside of the convent, St. Teresa's. After two years at St. Teresa's, Mother Teresa took her final vows on May 24, 1937 and officially became "Mother Teresa."

Almost immediately after taking her final vows, Mother Teresa became the principal of St. Mary's, one of the convent schools and was once again restricted to live within the convent's walls.

"A Call Within a Call"

For nine years, Mother Teresa continued as the principal of St. Mary's. Then on September 10, 1946, a day now annually celebrated as "Inspiration Day," Mother Teresa received what she described as a "call within a call." She had been traveling on a train to Darjeeling when she received an "inspiration," a message that told her to leave the convent and help the poor by living among them.

For two years Mother Teresa patiently petitioned her superiors for permission to leave the convent in order to follow her call. It was a long and frustrating process. To her superiors, it seemed dangerous and futile to send a single woman out into the slums of Kolkata. However, in the end, Mother Teresa was granted permission to leave the convent for one year to help the poorest of the poor.

In preparation for leaving the convent, Mother Teresa purchased three cheap, white, cotton saris, each one lined with three blue stripes along its edge. (This later became the uniform for the nuns at Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.) After 20 years with the Loreto order, Mother Teresa left the convent on August 16, 1948.

Rather than going directly to the slums, Mother Teresa first spent several weeks in Patna with the Medical Mission Sisters to obtain some basic medical knowledge. Having learned the basics, 38-year-old Mother Teresa felt ready to venture out into the slums in December of 1948.

Founding the Missionaries of Charity

Mother Teresa started with what she knew. After walking around the slums for a while, she found some small children and began to teach them. She had no classroom, no desks, no chalkboard, and no paper, so she picked up a stick and began drawing letters in the dirt. Class had begun.

Soon after, Mother Teresa found a small hut that she rented and turned it into a classroom. Mother Teresa also visited the children's families and others in the area, offering a smile and limited medical help. As people began to hear about her work, they gave donations.

In March 1949, Mother Teresa was joined by her first helper, a former pupil from Loreto. Soon she had ten former pupils helping her.

At the end of Mother Teresa's provisionary year, she petitioned to form her own order of nuns, the Missionaries of Charity. Her request was granted by Pope Pius XII; the Missionaries of Charity was established on October 7, 1950.

There are a number of excellent biographies available on line. I would suggest you start with a search. - Biography of Mother Teresa

A good biography of Mother Teresa is a book entitled Mother Teresa: A Biography by Meg Greene.

A more detailed first hand experience of working with Mother Teresa, warts and all, is Hope Endures, a book by by Colette Livermore.

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practiceis a book by Christopher Hitchens about the life and work of Mother Teresa. This book is not for everyone, because it contains research that reveals the darker side of Mother Teresa.

Having read many of Mother Teresa's books, I would suggest that the three top things that you can learn from this saintly woman would be: 1) Humility, of which she was an outstanding example, and the Venerable Bede says "without humility, we cannot be saved." 2) Faith, faith in Our Blessed Lord, even when He leaves you in total darkness, and finally 3) service. Because Our Blessed Lord made it very clear (St. Matthew 25:31-46) that we are going to be judged on our works-how well we have done what He Commanded, not just obeying the Ten Commandments but the Corporal Works of Mercy:

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The Corporal Works of Mercy

Matt 25:31

To feed the hungry,

To give drink to the thirsty,

To clothe the naked,

To visit the prisoners,

To shelter the homeless

To visit the sick,

To bury the dead

To give alms to the poor. (the last is from the Old Testament)

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In 1990, an ambulance in which she was travelling home is reported to have crashed, killing two people. There is no blame attached to this accident, but the Missionaries of Charity office later informed journalists that Mother Teresa had been delivering medicines to the hospital run by her order. However, the only medicine Mother Teresa is known to have permitted in her hospices were mild painkillers such as aspirin. Cancer pain can be unimaginable, but Mother Teresa provided nothing more than aspirin for the pain. She explained, "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering."

Mother Teresa did not prescribe the medication used for her own needs, but accepted what was prescribed for her at renowned medical clinics in the United States, Europe, and India, where she went for treatment. When Mother Teresa died, her bedroom in the order's Motherhouse had been specially fitted out for her with sophisticated and expensive cardiac equipment.

Colette Livermore, a former nun with the order, says that the sisters were refused quinine, placing them at risk from malaria.

Catholic Answer:

The only pain medications available to Mother Teresa and the vast majority of Indians were mild analgesics such as aspirin. Even major medical facilities found it problematic to obtain opiates and other strong pain killers until 2012. Had Mother Teresa's patients been taken to a registered medical facility they would have received the same medications for pain as provided them by the Missionaries of Charity. The use of aspirin to relieve mild to moderate pain in those suffering terminal cancer remains standard practice worldwide as approved by the WHO.

Mother Teresa did not seek out nor desire the advanced medical care and equipment that was forced on her by others, primarily by her own Missionaries of Charity. They were adamant about prolonging her leadership as long as possible and even refused her request to retire when she was already 80 years old and in poor health

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