Mother Teresa of Calcutta

In our monthly focus on a Saint, a member of our church looks at Saint Teresa. This article provides a different encounter of Mother Teresa.

"Faith in action is love. And love in action is service."

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, the future Mother Teresa, was born on 26 August 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, to Albanian heritage. Agnes left home in September 1928, for the Loreto Convent in Rathfarnam (Dublin), Ireland, where she was admitted as a postulant on October 12 .She chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries; because a nun in the convent had already chosen that name, she opted for its Spanish spelling (Teresa). She was sent by the Loreto order to India and arrived in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. Upon her arrival, she joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling. She made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While living in Calcutta during the 1930s and 40s, she taught in St. Mary's Bengali Medium School.

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 @Getty/AFP

On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the "call within a call," which was to give rise to the Missionaries of Charity family of Sisters, Brothers, Fathers, and Co-Workers. On October 7, 1950, the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially erected as a religious institute for the Archdiocese of Calcutta. Begun in Calcutta, India, the Missionaries of Charity grew to help the poor, dying, orphans, lepers, and AIDS sufferers in more than 100 countries. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work. In 1985, she spoke at the UN General Assembly.

Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta in the Vatican on September 4, 2016. Vatican News

After several years of deteriorating health, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. Her body was transferred to St Thomas's Church, next to the Loreto convent where she had first arrived nearly 69 years earlier. Hundreds of thousands of people from all classes and all religions, from India and abroad, paid their respects. She received a state funeral on 13 September, her body taken in procession through the streets of Calcutta. Presidents, prime ministers, queens, and special envoys were present on behalf of countries from all over the world. She was canonized as a saint on September 4, 2016, a day before the 19th anniversary of her death.

A Story for the Ages

There are numerous accounts and stories of Mother Teresa, but this story is hard to match. It is in this book Scandalous Mercy, a compilation of various supernatural and inspirational accounts by the popular French writer, Sister Emmanuel, a religious with the Beatitudes community in Hercegovina.

It has to do with a devout Catholic Marine named Jim, who had dreamed of meeting Mother Teresa, and decided in his time off, to fly from San Francisco to Calcutta. When he reached her house, he was informed that Mother Teresa had to leave for Rome. He was very disappointed.

As the story goes, the next day when he answered the doorbell, he saw Mother Teresa standing, to his amazement. She asked him to follow her and led him to a bridge where he found an elderly man, lying in his own excrement and vomit. She asked him to pick him up. He found it extremely hard as he could not stand the stench and the filthy odor that was nauseating. He did not want to disappoint Mother Teresa, so he picked him up and brought him to the house. He was instructed to give the man a bath. The old man had wounds that were infected and had drawn flies. Jim cleaned the man in a tub and washed his sores, when he had an amazing encounter. The man had transformed into Jesus with holes in his hands and feet, side pierced and face swollen with injury. Jim was shocked, when Mother Teresa softly said “You saw him, didn’t you?” who also witnessed the same. When he looked back, Mother Teresa had gone. He was shaken to the core. He inquired about Mother Teresa and got the same reply “she is still in Rome.” When insisted otherwise, a nun replied “Ah, yes, I understand. She does that sometimes.”

Under a small bridge in Calcutta, in the middle of the darkest human despair, he touched the Face of God and his life will never be the same.