Mother Teresa - A Saint For All Time
1910 - 1997
Introduction
Mother Teresa was a very special woman, truly a saint, and I am sure that one day soon she will be cannonized by the Roman Catholic Church and find her eternal place. As someone who works with people who are mentally ill, physically sick, and emotionally and spiritually bankrupt, I can tell you that Mother Teresa has been a true inspiration to me over the years. She is a woman who barely ate, rarely slept, often smiled, and gave of herself in so many ways and to so many people. I wish that more of us could follow her example by not being so critical of one another, loving others as we wish to be loved, and by reaching out to the poorest souls among us.
This site was created as both a memorial to Mother Teresa and as a forum for motherless daughters and others to share our grief over Mother Teresa's life and our joy over her life and work. I invite you read about Mother's life and then to sign in at our special guestbook to honor the woman who was truly the saint of the gutters.
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents on August 26, 1910, in what is now Macedonia but was then part of Yugoslavia. At 18, she went to Dublin, Ireland, to take her vows and become a nun of Loretto, a teaching order that ran convent schools in India. She took the name Sister Teresa in honor of Saint Teresa of Lisieux, the patroness of missionaries. She taught in the Order's school in Calcutta until 1946, when, while traveling to the Himalayan region of Darjeeling, she says she received a message from God to devote herself to "the poorest of the poor." Her order celebrates that "inspiration" every year on September 10.
One day in 1948, she found a woman "half eaten up by maggots and rats" lying in the street in front of a Calcutta hospital. She stayed with the woman until she died, then appealed to authorities for a building where the poor could die in dignity. She was allocated a hostel used by pilgrims next to the temple of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. The Nirmal Hriday or "Pure Heart" clinic remained the center of Mother Teresa's growing charity and the place she called home.
Her life changed when the British Broadcasting Corp. made a television documentary on her in 1969. Volunteers and donations began pouring in the "the saint of the gutters," and her mission spread. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. She told an interviewer once that she saw Jesus Christ in the faces of the poor, the outcast, the maimed and the dying. She described them as Christ in "distressing disguise," and said she felt they all deserved what she called "the delicate love of God."
"I think it is really important that we all realize they are our brothers and sisters, and we owe that love and care and concern," she said. "The poor give us much more than we give them," she said in 1977. "They're such strong people, living day-to-day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We don't have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them."
Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, which she founded in 1949 in her adopted home of Calcutta, grew from 12 original followers to approximate 4,000 nuns who minister to the needy at 450 centers in the slums of 200 cities.
Wherever people needed comfort, she was there: among the hungry in Ethiopia, the radiation victims at Chernobyl, the rubble of Armenia's earthquake and the landless outcasts of South Africa. When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, Mother Teresa rushed into the communist countries that had shunned her for decades with dozens of projects. But like many pivotal figures, Mother Teresa was not without her critics. A 1994 British television documentary and, later, published comments by some Westerners familiar with her charity work claimed her homes provided haphazard medical care and lacked basic medicines. Mother Teresa brushed aside such accusations. "No matter who says what," she said, "you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."
Her devotion and efforts to world peace earned her worldwide respect and numerous humanitarian awards, notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Upon learning she had won the award, she said, "I am unworthy." Despite illness in her later years the frail, tiny nun refused to retire. She was hospitalized in early 1996 after breaking her collarbone. She received a heart pacemaker in 1989. She suffered two heart attacks, one while meeting Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1983. In late 1996 she was hospitalized twice for heart problems, malaria and pneumonia. In early 1997 the woman who thousands considered a "saint on Earth" finally stepped down as the Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity. "Pray together and we stay together," she said once. "And if we stay together, we'll love each other as God himself loves us." 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.'" These words, once spoken by Mother Teresa, vividly recall the life of the late Roman Catholic nun and missionary known as "the Saint of the Gutters." For Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to the succor of the sick and the outcast, earthly sufferers were nothing less than Christ in "distressing disguise."
From an early age, the girl who would become Mother Teresa felt the call to help others. Born August 26, 1910, in Skopje (now in Macedonia), Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was the daughter of Albanian parents -- a grocer and his wife. As a public school student she developed a special interest in overseas missions and, by age 12, realized her vocation was aiding the poor. She was inspired to work in India by reports sent home from Jesuit missionaries in Bengal. And at 18, she left home to join a community of Irish nuns with a mission in Calcutta. Here, she took the name "Sister Teresa," after Saint Teresa of Lisieux, the patroness of missionaries. She spent 17 years teaching and being principal of St. Mary's high school in Calcutta. However, in 1946, her life changed forever.
After falling ill with suspected tuberculosis she was sent to the town of Darjeeling to recover. "It was in the train I heard the call to give up all and follow him to the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor," she remembered. Two years later, Pope Pius XII granted permission for her to leave her order. After taking a medical training course to prepare for her new mission, she went into the slums of Calcutta to start a school for children. They called her "Mother Teresa." Through the years, Mother Teresa's fame grew, as did the magnitude of her deeds ...
In 1950, the community she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, was officially recognized by the Archdiocese of Calcutta. The Vatican recognized the organization as a pontifical congregation the same year. What began as an order with 12 members has grown to more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and other charity centers worldwide.
In 1952, she established a home for the dying poor -- the Nirmal Hriday (or "Pure Heart") Home for Dying Destitutes. There, homeless people -- uncared for and unacceptable at other institutions -- were washed, fed and allowed to die with dignity.
In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. Accepting the award in the name of the "unwanted, unloved and uncared for," Mother Teresa wore the same $1 white sari she had adopted when she founded her order. It was to identify herself with the poor.
When Pope Paul VI gave her a white Lincoln Continental, she auctioned the car, using the money to establish a leper colony in West Bengal.
In 1982, during the siege of Beirut, she convinced the Israeli army and Palestinian guerillas to stop shooting long enough for her to rescue 37 children trapped in a front-line hospital. When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, she expanded her efforts to communist countries that had shunned her, embarking on dozens of projects. Though Mother Teresa's good deeds were indisputable, her life was not without controversy. A 1994 British television documentary, "Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa of Calcutta," accused her of taking donations without questioning the sources. She also received some criticism for her strong views against abortion and divorce.
Mother Teresa was undeterred by criticism, stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." And she did ... returning to work time and again after serious health setbacks. Following a nearly fatal heart attack in 1990, Mother Teresa announced her intention to resign as head of her order. During a secret ballot of her sisters, she was re-elected almost unanimously. The only dissenting vote? Her own.
Her Life
1910: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu born August 27 in Skopje, in what is now Macedonia, the youngest of three children of an Albanian builder.
1928: Becomes novitiate in Loretto order, which ran mission schools in India, and takes name Sister Teresa.
1929: Arrives in Calcutta to teach at St. Mary's High School.
1937: Takes final vows as a nun.
1946: While riding a train to the mountain town of Darjeeling to recover from suspected tuberculosis, she said she received a calling from God "to serve him among the poorest of the poor."
1947: Permitted to leave her order and moves to Calcutta's slums to set up her first school.
1950: Founds the order of Missionaries of Charity.
1952: Opens Nirmal Hriday, or "Pure Heart," a home for the dying, followed next year by her first orphanage.
1962: Wins her first prize for her humanitarian work: the Padma Shri award for distinguished service. Over the years, she uses the money from such prizes to found dozens of new homes.
1979: Wins Nobel Peace Prize.
1982: Persuades Israelis and Palestinians to stop shooting long enough to rescue 37 retarded children from a hospital in besieged Beirut.
1983: Has a heart attack while in Rome visiting Pope John Paul II.
1985: Awarded Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award.
1989: Has a second and nearly fatal attack. Doctors implant a pacemaker.
1990: Announces her intention to resign, and a conclave of sisters is called to choose successor. In a secret ballot, Mother Teresa is re-elected with only one dissenting vote -- her own -- and withdraws request to step down.
1991: Suffers pneumonia in Tijuana, Mexico, leading to congestive heart failure, and is hospitalized in La Jolla, California.
1993: Breaks three ribs in fall in May in Rome; hospitalized for malaria in August in New Delhi; undergoes surgery to clear blocked blood vessel in Calcutta in September.
1996: November 16, receives honorary U.S. citizenship.
1996: Falls and breaks collarbone in April; suffers malarial fever and failure of the left heart ventricle in August; treated for a chest infection and recurring heart problems in September. Readmitted to hospital with chest pains and breathing problems November 22.
1997: March 13, steps down as head of her order.
Nearly 50 years ago, Mother Teresa found a woman "half eaten by maggots and rats" lying in front of a Calcutta hospital. The diminutive Roman Catholic nun sat with the woman until she died. Soon after, she began a campaign for a shelter for people to die with dignity. Until her death Friday she made a mission of caring for the human castoffs the world wanted to forget. Accepting the Nobel peace prize in the name of the "unwanted, unloved and uncared for," she wore the same $1 white sari that she had adopted to identify herself with the poor when she founded her order, Missionaries of Charity. Her impact was mostly felt in her adopted home, Calcutta, where she directed the Missionaries of Charity for nearly 50 years. But the order's work spread across the globe after 1965, when Pope Paul VI authorized its expansion. She created a global network of homes for the poor, from the hovels of Calcutta to the ghettos of New York, including one of the first homes for AIDS victims. Misery had a formidable and unrelenting foe in Mother Teresa; Whether it was in Ethiopia tending to the hungry or in the squalid townships of South Africa, Calcutta's "angel of mercy" was there. In 1982, at the height of the seige in Beirut, the frail nun rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerillas. Her work was almost always praised. But her funding methods met with some criticism. Mother Teresa's causes were financed by public foundations, private donors and scores of prizes. A 1994 British television documentary, "Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa of Calcutta," accused her of accepting contributions without questioning the source, including the likes of Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. Mother Teresa had a short response to such allegations: "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work," she said. Under Mother Teresa's guidance, the order focused much of its attention on giving comfort to the dying, a task the sisters continue. In an abandoned temple to the Hindu goddess Kali, Mother Teresa founded the Kalighat Home for the Dying. The order established Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace), a leper colony, in the mid-1950s on land granted from the Indian government.
In India and beyond, Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity devoted their time to the blind, the disabled, the aged, and the poor. She opened schools, orphanages and homes for the needy, and turned her attention to the victims of AIDS as that disease increased in prevalence. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries.
Perhaps, French President Jacques Chirac summed up Mother Teresa's legacy best when he said after her death: "This evening, there is less love, less compassion, less light in the world."
In Her Own Words
On poverty
"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.
On the Nobel Peace Prize
"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.
*****
On war
"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.
*****
On abortion
Abortion "is murder in the womb ... A child is a gift of God. If you do not want him, give him to me."
*****
On retirement
"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.
*****
On her life's work
"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.'" --
India's prime minister was among the thousands of people who paid their last respects to Mother Teresa in person Sunday after her embalmed body was moved from the main building of the religious order she founded to a Calcutta church. Grief-stricken mourners jostled for a glimpse of the coffin containing Mother Teresa's body as it was escorted to a flower-bedecked ambulance. About 60 nuns of the Missionaries of Charity preceded the coffin. Two rows of altar boys dressed in red Catholic vestments, each preceded by a lantern-bearer, flanked the nuns.
Police surrounded the procession as the ambulance carried Teresa's from Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, to St. Thomas Catholic Church. Teresa had planned to lead inter-faith prayers at St. Thomas on Saturday for Britain's Princess Diana, whose funeral was held in London that day. Her open casket, now ensconced atop a four-foot-high platform in a huge glass case, will lie in state at St. Thomas for a week of public viewing. The nuns of her order decided the convent chapel at her headquarters was too small to accommodate the crowds.
Mother Teresa, who retained her simplicity and humility despite an avalanche of international fame, died Friday night of a heart attack. A line of mourners that began forming in front of St. Thomas before dawn Sunday was half a mile long by 9 a.m. Admirers of different nationalities and religions, including Hindus, Christians and Muslims, were in the line. They carried wreaths of flowers and handmade posters, tokens of their love and respect for the nun. Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral was among the mourners Sunday. Gujral, accompanied by Sister Nirmala, who succeeded Mother Teresa at the head of her religious order in March, circled the platform bearing Mother Teresa's body and stood in silence with folded hands for some time.
"We had (Mahatma) Gandhi in the first half of the century to show us the path to fight against poverty, and in the second half we have the Mother to show us the path to work for the poor," Gujral later told reporters. "She is no more. Millions are feeling that they have become orphaned. I am one of the orphans," he said.
In a message of condolence to Gujral and Indian Prime Minister K.R. Narayanan, Russian President Boris Yeltsin echoed Gujral's sentiments. "All the life of this great woman was the bright incarnation of service to the high humanitarian ideals of goodness, compassion, selflessness and faith," he said. "Mother Teresa will always remain in the hearts and minds of Russians as a friend of our country, ready to render help at any moment."
Mother Teresa's body will be buried Saturday in a state funeral ceremony, an honor usually accorded only to senior politicians and heads of state. The gesture, decided upon by Gujral's Cabinet on Saturday, was a mark of extraordinary respect for a Roman Catholic nun who served the people of the predominantly Hindu nation directly rather than through any official post. The funeral service will be held in St. Thomas Church in Calcutta, which is part of the Loreto Convent where Mother Teresa began her worldwide missionary effort.
The Vatican was already receiving calls to proclaim Mother Teresa a saint, a process that takes many years. Archbishop John P. Foley said she was a woman of "profound faith and prayer."
And Pope John Paul II, a close personal friend of Mother Teresa, lauded her work in an address Sunday, saying her "endless inner energy" was "the energy of Christ's love." He is in the midst of preparations for a trip to Latin America and will be unable to attend her funeral. Heads of state worldwide were also considering whether to attend. As of Saturday evening, senior U.S. administration officials said President Clinton would not attend Mother Teresa's funeral. The administration will settle on arrangements early next week, the officials said. First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton might attend.
After the service, the humble nun's body will be taken to its final resting place in the convent where she lived and toiled for the poorest of the poor for most of her life.
Mother Teresa seems ideal candidate for sainthood
But process could take a long time
Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to helping the poor and the outcast, was considered by many as a living saint. With her death Friday in Calcutta at 87, she now seems to be an ideal candidate to be canonized -- declared a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. But the process could take some time. Despite the price her health paid for her work, she doesn't appear eligible to be considered a martyr, a category that would speed the way, said a Vatican official familiar with the procedures.
Still, there is a great deal of interest in her case, with Pope John Paul II one of her leading admirers. Shocked that the Vatican had no facilities for the homeless, she convinced the pope to build a hospice on Vatican grounds. It opened a few years ago. The Vatican said the pope prayed for Mother Teresa upon learning of her death and planned a special Mass Saturday.
"Her death touched his heart very deeply," the Vatican said. The case for canonization can be initiated by the bishop in the diocese where the candidate died -- in this case, Calcutta. However, only five years after a death can the bishop begin collecting proof of the "heroic virtue and reputation of holiness" of the person. The church requires that two miracles attributed to the candidate's intercession with God be approved by the Vatican before canonization, except in the case of martyrdom. Although centuries pass before some candidates reach sainthood, others advance quickly. When the founder of the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei was beatified in 1992 only 17 years after his death, eyebrows were raised because of the pope's known interest in the group. The Vatican denied John Paul exerted any pressure. The pope is a firm believer in promoting saints as models of virtue.
Since assuming the papacy in 1978, John Paul has canonized 278 people and beatified 768. Both numbers exceed those of all other popes this century put together. Beatification, the pope's declaration that a deceased person is in heaven and worthy of veneration, is usually a step toward canonization.
Personal Remembrances & More
Steve Lang once shook John F. Kennedy's hand and saw President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth from afar. But to Lang, memories of powerful world leaders have never qualed the lasting impact of a visit by Mother Teresa to St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre in 1986.
"I've never been so awed," Lang, 55, said yesterday, recalling how he'd stood outside the church a decade ago to hear the nun speak. "This little tiny woman who seemed to have an effect on the whole world because of her selflessness."
Those views were echoed by many other Long Islanders who paused to consider the legacy of the woman known to Indians as simply "Mother." Attempting to sum up the nun's contribution to humanity, people recalled her selflessness, her voluntary poverty, and her decades of support for the sick and the destitute around the world. At IndiaFest, a cultural fair held this weekend near Lido Beach, Indian merchants and fair-goers spoke in personal terms of how India had lost a savior. "We're going to miss her," said Manjula Patel, 47, of Freeport. "She helped all the poor peoples in India and all around the world."
"We are very grateful she came to India," said Indu Jaiswal, 45, of Garden City, who is president of the India Association of Long Island and still visits her husband's home in Calcutta, where Mother Teresa had her missionary headquarters. "A non-Indian coming to India and taking care of sick and poor people - it's like God's gift to India."
Several people said her devotion to the world's poor will be sadly missed and not easily eplaced.
"She was so generous and always mindful of the needy," said Mildred McQuillen, 87, of Ridge, after a church service at St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church in Shoreham. "There are other living saints, [but] I don't know anyone else like her."
"The Bible says the rich have a hard time getting to heaven . . . Mother Teresa was for the poor people," said Joe Castelli, 50, of Oceanside, an usher at St. Agnes who described himself as poor and jobless. Mother Teresa, he said, symbolized "holiness" and "everything good about the Church."
Jackie Hedgspeth, 29, said Mother Teresa's death "would make heaven happier . . . This is what she's worked for, and she's home," said Hedgspeth, who carried her 12-week-old baby, Quinn, into St. Agnes. "It's what we dream of."
Catholic churches across Long Island memorialized the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner in regular masses yesterday. At St. Mark's, the Rev. Ted Howard spoke of what made Mother Teresa a legend: a little thing, just doing something.
"She saw a man dying of leprosy. She went down and held his hand, shared the last moments of his life. That forever changed her life," Howard told parishioners.
The Rev. William Koenig told Rockville Centre churchgoers that the nun "taught us by her words and actions" about love, listening, forgiveness and the hungry. He and several churchgoers also praised Mother Teresa for her outspoken opposition to abortion. "She never sought the limelight, but served the poorest of the poor and the littlest of the little," Koenig said after the mass.
For many, yesterday was a time to reflect on what they described as "overwhelming" emotions after Princess Diana's death followed by that of Mother Teresa. At an altar for the Virgin Mary at the Rockville Centre church, someone left two red roses, one "In Loving Memory - Princess Diana," the other "In Loving Memory - Mother Teresa." "It is overwhelming for these two wonderful people who have done a lot for the unfortunate and the underpriveleged to go in the same week," said Cathy Portenoy, 35, of Rockville Centre, who attended mass with her three children. "In this situation, everyone becomes one big community and tries to carry on." Some people, especially teenagers, were more familiar with the deeds of Princess Diana. Andrea Corbett, 17, a senior at Southside High School in Rockville Centre, woke up at 2 a.m. Saturday to watch Diana's funeral, but she knew mainly that Mother Teresa "helped people." Diana, she said, "was an excellent person, who meant so much to me. She touched a baby that had AIDS."
The reason for such praise was lost on others, who said Mother Teresa's singular devotion to the poor and to the church deserved more attention than Diana's charity work and, what St. Agnes parishioner Mike Cummo called, "photo ops." "There's a big difference. Mother Teresa actually did things that actually helped people," said Cummo, 48, of Rockville Centre. "Look how much Diana's coverage is, day and night. It's insane."
Though doubtful that Mother Teresa could be replaced, many people said they hoped her good works would continue to inspire regular citizens to do more for the downtrodden. John Kirrane, 13, a freshman at Chaminade, a Catholic High School in Mineola, said her sacrifice would forever be hard to match. "I think it's amazing that someone could go through her whole life helping people . . . I know that I could never do that, but now that she's gone, I and other people could do things to help, hopefully." Selling Indian-made furniture and religious objects at IndiaFest, Mitesh Patel, 31, of Floral Park, recalled how his college classmates - orphans who had been helped by Mother Teresa - took up her charitable works by collecting food from Bombay's restaurants for other poor people in the nun's missions.
"We've never seen or ever experienced a person who could do so much for other people with such selflessness," he said. "She gave herself up to the last minute."
******
Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral led thousands yesterday in prayers for Mother Teresa, as plans were made for a state funeral Saturday at a football field rather than a church. Gujral and an estimated 35,000 mourners paid homage at St. Thomas Church, one of Calcutta's oldest and largest Catholic churches, where the body of the Nobel laureate nun, who died Friday at age 87, lay in a glass casket.
"On behalf of the bereaved nation, I have come here to pay tribute to Mother Teresa," he said. "She was a beacon of light and hope who removed the tears of suffering millions. We are fortunate that Mother Teresa started the Missionaries of Charity in this country."
Sunita Kumar, a close associate of the nun, said the army on Thursday will take over the security at St. Thomas Church. The military also will control the stadium where her funeral mass will be held, and guard the Missionaries of Charity order premises during her burial on its grounds, Kumar said. Mother Teresa's funeral will be held in the 15,000-seat stadium where Pope John Paul II addressed the faithful during his 1986 visit to India, a spokesman for Calcutta Archbishop Henry d'Souza, Father Ambrose, said. Ambrose said the stadium was chosen in order to prevent overcrowding. "If only the Catholics of Calcutta come, they alone can fill up the stadium," he said.
Saturday will be a day of national mourning for Calcutta's "saint of the gutters." Flags will fly at half-staff and government engagements are cancelled. The frail, 4-foot-11-inch nun will be buried in the grounds of the order she founded here in 1950 to care for the poorest of the poor. Her order now has more than 4,000 nuns and runs 517 orphanages, homes for the poor, AIDS hospices and other charity centers around the world. Yesterday, mourners including barefoot paupers, government leaders, a former beauty queen and an Indian musician, filed quickly through the church, stopping for just a few moments before the body. Braving hot and humid weather in the morning and a heavy monsoon downpour later, mourners lined up with umbrellas and white flower wreaths inside wooden barricades to pay their respects. Mother Teresa died at the headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity, where she lived in a simple room. Her body lay in the order's small, dimly lit chapel. But the room was too small to accommodate crowds, so the public viewing was delayed. Her body was moved early yesterday in a white ambulance, as bells pealed in St. Thomas Church and anguished wails rose from mourners. Mourners began gathering before dawn, and by the time the coffin arrived, the line snaked half a mile along the sidewalk in front of the chapel.
"Mother Teresa, we will always love you," read a handwritten poster hanging from the neck of one grieving child. Even at the chapel, the importance of caste and privilege in India was inescapable. Politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats roared to the front of the line in bulky white official cars, and strode into the chapel through a special entrance. Meanwhile, shop owners and students, clerks and children in starched Sunday best waited uncomplainingly while their line moved in spurts for the chance, however brief, to see Mother Teresa.
"There are so many people here," said Indrani Dasgupta, a student. "People loved her so much, they want to see her at peace, even if only for a moment."
******
The Rev. William McCarthy, associate pastor at St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church in Shoreham, met Mother Teresa briefly on a patio at a cardinal's home in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Maryann Anderson, a Catholic schoolteacher from Levittown, met the world-famous nun at a Bronx convent, accompanying her to a TV studio where Mother Teresa was to appear on "Good Morning America." Despite the differing places and circumstances of the meetings both Long Islanders ended up with the same impression of her - a frail, humble but intense woman who had made her mark on the world, and thought nothing of it. Anderson, who has taught for 31 years at St. Fidelis in College Point, Queens, got a call one day around Christmas in 1986 from a friend who was a priest, asking whether she wanted to accompany Mother Teresa on a ride from the Bronx to the television studio in Manhattan. She was so elated she could hardly speak when they first met. "I couldn't believe such an opportunity could be mine," Anderson said yesterday. "I witnessed grown men crying as they touched her hand." Anderson recalled that the matresses the nuns used at the Bronx convent where Mother Teresa was staying were only an inch thick, and that the nuns wore no shoes.
Despite her humble surroundings, Mother Teresa was clearly in control of the situation, and she avoided all distractions. She declined requests for magazine interviews, for example, because they intruded on the conversation she was having with her, Anderson recalled. And, as they celebrated mass at the convent, Mother Teresa offered to let Anderson take communion first. "You're my guest," she said. In the TV studio's waiting room, with time to spare, they chatted. "She didn't speak about herself. She just asked about you," Anderson said. "She was very confident. That's the other part of it. She was so down to earth." A make-up artist came in to prepare her for the interview, but Mother Teresa simply shook her head no. "She just looked up and continued to say her rosary," Anderson said. "She was a really humble person and had a teriffic sense of humor. She said to us: `I'm here to acquire some property in New York City, and you know what happens to property values when I move in. They go down.' " Anderson still has the autographed business card Mother Teresa gave her. "The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service," it reads.
McCarthy was just as favorably impressed with Mother Teresa when he met her about 20 years ago. He had been working in Africa for a decade as a missionary priest, helping to establish what has evolved into a religious community of 350,000 Catholics in Tanzania. When McCarthy first went to Africa, there were few Catholics. But even in that rural, isolated community, everyone knew of Mother Teresa. The day they met he said he had gone on a routine errand to speak to a vicar about church business. And the vicar was at the home of the cardinal, who had invited Mother Teresa to see him - a return courtesy, to repay a visit of the cardinal to Calcutta to witness her work with the destitute. McCarthy said he and Mother Teresa chatted briefly, and he still smiles as he recalls her Albanian accent, and the few private words they shared, the thought of their common purpose in sharing the love of God. He also remembers her demeanor, as she waited, after traveling thousands of miles from Calcutta. "She went by herself to see the cardinal, like a servant of a servant of God," he said. Copyright 1997, Newsday Inc.
Rest in Peace, Mother Teresa
Please Share Your Feelings About The Loss of Mother Teresa Here
