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Telugu
Christian Articles
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| Mother
Teresa |
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born august 26,
1910; baptized august 27 in Skopje, in
Macedonia. Her family belongs to the Albanian
community. They are catholic, though the
majority of the Albanians are muslim there.
The Turkish Empire is ruling the country. Her
father is a businessman. He owns a building
company and is connected to a food shop. He
travelled a lot, was multi-lingual and very
interested in politics. He was member of the
community council. He, Kolė, thought Agnes
her first lessons in charity, together with
Drana, his wife and Agnes' mother.
Totally unexpected, when Agnes was 9, her
father died. It was 1919 and Drana had to
raise her three children, Aga (1904), Lazar
(1907) and Gonxha (1910) alone. To foresee in
their needs she sew wedding dresses, made
embroidery and worked hard. In spite of all
this, she made time for the education of her
children. They prayed every evening, went to
church every day, prayed the rosary every day
in may and assisted the service for the Holy
Virgin. A great and warm attention went also
to the poor and needy who came to knock at the
door. During the holidays a stay in the
pilgrimage place of Letnice, where Our Lady
was venerated, was a custom for the family.
Agnes liked to be in church, she liked to read
and to pray and to sing. Here mother also took
care of an alcoholistic women in the
neighbourhood. She went to wash and feed her
twice a day and she also took care of a widow
with 6 children. When Drana could not go,
Agnes went to do this charitable work. And
when the widow died, the children were raised
in the house as if they were family. Lazar won
a scholarship in Austria, Aga followed
commercial school and Agnes went to the
Lyceum. She studied well. Together with Aga
she was in the Choir, she was a soprano, Aga
second voice. She also played the mandolin.
A great part of their time also went to the
Legion of Mary. She helped a father, who had
difficulties with the language, to teach
catechism and read a lot about Slovenian and
Croatian missionaries in India. At twelve she
felt for the first time the desire to spend
her life for Gods' work, to give it to Him and
to let Him decide. But how could she be sure?
She prayed a lot over it and talked about it
with her sister and her mother. And also the
father to whom she confessed she asked:
"How can I be sure?" He answered:
"through your JOY. If you feel really
happy by the idea that God might call you to
serve Him, Him and your neighbour, then this
is the evidence that you have a call."
And he added: "the deep inner joy that
you feel is the compass that indicates your
direction in life".
At 18 it is the day! The decision was made.
The last two years she assisted several
religious retreats in Letnice and it was clear
to her that she would be a missionary for
India. On Assumption day in 1928 she went to
Letnice to pray for Our Lady's blessing before
leaving. She was going to join the Sisters of
Our Lady of Loreto, who were very active in
India.
September 25 she leaves, accompanied to the
station by the whole community: friends,
schoolmates, neighbours, young and old and of
course her mother and her sister Aga (who will
be later a translator and a radio speakerin).
And everybody weeps. (Mainly from the book:
"A life: Mother Teresa, Lush Gjergi,
Albania).
She travels over Zagreb, to Austria,
Switzerland, France to London and then to the
abbey close to Dublin where the mother house
of the Loreto Sisters is. Gonxha learns to
speak English and is trained in religious
life. She receives the clothes of a sister and
chooses the name of Sister Teresa, in memory
of the Little Teresa of Lisieux, where they
stopped on the way to London. In the mean time
her papers get ready and 1928 on december the
1st the crossing to India starts: the country
of her dreams. It is a long and tiring
journey. Some more sisters are on board but
the main group is anglican. For weeks they
cannot attend mass or receive communion. Not
on Christmas either. But they make a crib,
pray the rosary and sing Christmas songs.
In the beginning of 1929 they reach Colombo,
then Madras and finally Calcutta. The journey
continues to Darjeeling, at the feet of the
Himalayas, where the young sister will
accomplish her training. On may 23, 1929 she
is accepted as a novice and two years later
she makes her first vows. Immediately after
that she is send to Bengali to help the
sisters in the little hospital with the care
for sick, starving and helpless mothers. She
is touched by the endless misery which is
there.
She is send to Calcutta to study to become a
teacher. Whenever she can she helps in the
care for the sick. When her study is finished,
she is named to be teacher and has to cross
the city every day. The first work was to
clean the classroom. Quickly the children
learned to love her for her enthusiasm and her
tenderness and their number raised to three
hundred. In another part of the city there
were one hundred little students. She saw
where they lived and what they ate. For her
care and her love, they soon called her
"ma". Sundays, whenever there was
time, she went to visit this family's.
On may 24 in 1937 she makes her final vows in
Darjeeling. She is named headmaster of a
secondary school for middle class Bengali
girls in the centre of Calcutta. She was there
teacher for history and geography for some
time. Close to the institute is one of the
great slums of Calcutta. Sister Teresa cannot
close her eyes: who cares for this poor living
in the streets? The great charity that speaks
through her mothers letters, reminds her of
the basic call: to care for the poor.
The Legion of Mary is also active in this
school. With the girls, Sister Teresa goes
regularly to the hospitals, the slums, the
poor. They do not only pray. They talk
seriously about what they see and what they
do. The Belgian Walloon jesuit, Father Henry,
who was the spiritual director, was a great
inspiration in this work. He will direct
Sister Teresa for years. Under his inspiration
the desire grows to do more for the poor, but
how?
With all this in her head she leaves for
retreat to Darjeeling on the 10th of september.
"The most important journey of my
life" she said afterwards. It was then
that she really heard Gods' voice. His message
was clear: she had to leave the convent to
help the poorest of the poor and to live with
them. "It was an order, a duty, an
absolute certainty. I knew what to do, but I
did not know how". The 10th of september
is so important in the Society that this day
is called "Inspiration day".
Sister Teresa prayed, talked with some other
sisters, asked her superior, who sent her to
see the archbishop of Calcutta, Mgr. Perrier.
She explained to him her vocation, but he
refused her the permission. He talked it over
with father Henry, who knew Sister Teresa
well. They considered thoroughly the problems:
India was about to be independent and Sister
Teresa was a European! What were the political
and other dangers? Would Rome approve this
decision? The bishop told Sister Teresa to
pray over this decision for at least a year or
to join the Daughters of Saint Anna, sisters
wearing a dark blue sari and working among the
the poor. Sister Teresa did not consider this
the right response for her. She wanted to live
among the poor.
When after a year Sister Teresa renewed her
intention, the archbishop wanted to grant her
the permission but decided it would be better
to ask the permission from Rome and from the
mother general in Dublin. This decision took a
long time.
In august 1948 she received the permission to
leave the Loreto community under the condition
to keep the vows of poverty, purity and
obedience. She is 38 when she says goodbye to
her sisters and religious Loreto robe, to
change it for a cheap white and blue sari.
First she goes to Patna to follow a nursing
training with the sisters there. It is obvious
to her that she can only help the poor in
their dirty, sickening habitation if she
herself knows how to prevent and cure. This
medical training is indispensable for the
fulfilment of her new call.
The superior in Patna, a doctor, gives her
good advice when Sister Teresa talks about how
she wants to live among the poor and how she
wishes to care for them. When Sister Teresa
says that she wants to live on rice and salt,
like the poor, the superior answers that this
would be the best way to hinder herself in
following her call: this kind of life demands
a strong and good health.
Back in Calcutta, Sister Teresa goes in the
slums and the streets, to talk with the poor,
to help them. All she has is a piece of soap
and five roepies. She helps to wash the
babies, to clean the wounds. The poor people
are astonished: Who is this european lady in
that poor sari? She speaks fluently Bengali!
And she helps them wash, clean and care! Soon
she starts to teach the poor children how to
read and write, how to wash and to have some
hygiene. Later it will be possible to hire a
small place to make a school.
She herself sleeps with the Sisters of the
Poor. God is her great refuge for strength and
material support. And He is: always she finds
the right medicine, clothes, food and a place
to receive the poor to be able to help them.
At noon children receive a cup of milk and a
piece of soap, when they come regularly, but
they also hear about God, who is love and who
- contrarily to their obvious reality - loves
them, really loves them.
One day a Bengalise girl, from a well-off
family and former student of Sister Teresa,
wants to stay with Sister Teresa and help her.
This is a touching moment. But Sister Teresa
is realistic: she speaks about the full
poverty, about all the disagreeable aspects of
the work which is hers. She proposes the girl
to wait some time.
The 19th of march 1949 the girl comes back
with no jewels and in a poor dress. The
decision was made. She was the first to join
Sister Teresa and took her girls' name: Agnes.
Other girls follow: in may they were three, in
november five, next year seven. And Sister
Teresa prayed fervently for more vocations to
the Lord and to Our Lady. There was a lot of
work. The sisters raised early in the morning,
prayed a long time, had adoration and attended
mass to find in their spiritual life the
strength to do the material work in the
service of the poor. Thank God, a certain
Mister Gomes offered the top floor of his
house to Sister Teresa for her first
community. In this year also Sister Teresa
takes the Indian nationality.
Sister Teresa sees the community grow and
knows she can think seriously about starting a
congregation. For the first constitutions she
asks the advice of two from her first helpers:
Father Julien Henry s.j. and Father Celest Van
Exem s.j. The last reading was done by father
P. De Gheldere. The "Constitutions of the
Society of the Missionaries of Charity"
could be presented to the archbishop, who
would send them for approval to Rome.
Early in autumn the papal approval arrived and
7th of October 1950, feast of the Holy Rosary,
the foundation was celebrated in the chapel of
the sisters. The archbishop celebrated mass
and father Van Exem read the foundation
papers. That moment there were 12 sisters.
Every year hundreds of sisters over the world
celebrate on the feast day of Our Lady of the
Rosary the foundation of the Congregation. Not
even five years after this day the
congregation became papal, this means that
they depend straight from the pope.
It is basic in the Rule of the Society that
the sisters, out of love for Jesus, devote
themselves out of their free will, to the
service of the poorest of the poor and this is
as a fact, their fourth vow. This is their way
to live and spread the gospel and work for the
salvation and the sanctification of the poor.
While the number of poor and sick that asked
for help was increasing, the admiration for
the free devotion of the sisters was growing
as well. Find a suitable house to accept the
increasing number of sisters was a real
necessity. After a novena to Saint Cecilia the
solution came: a muslim leaving town to
Pakistan sold his big house for a cheap price
and this became the famous Mother house, Lower
Circular Road 54A.
The postulants first came from Bengaly, then
from all over India and finally from all over
the world. The foundress herself was novice
mistress. For the spiritual training she asked
one of the fathers, but for the matters of the
house and the Community, it was clear, this
was not his responsibility. She did not want
an interference from outside in the inside
matters.
The first confession father was father Edward
Le Joly s.j. Like the other jesuits he was
from Belgian origin. He had a good contact and
a good co-working and wrote some of the first
and most respected books about Mother Teresa
and her Missionaries of Charity.
While the society grew in work and number
Mother kept praying for vocations and the work
kept growing. Houses were opening and some
closing down from one day to another for one
or another political, social or security
reason. The society is very much alive and
moving. Mother Teresa went all over the world
to help people, rescue children, advise her
sisters; to organize and to talk. More and
more she was asked to address words to a group
of sometimes 'ordinary' sometimes very
exquisite crowds. In spite of the fact that
her message is often the same, can be captured
in few sentences and that she certainly has
many times a quite "traditional"
point of view, she is listened to carefully.
In spite of her age she continues to search
means to help the poor people all over the
world and she helps with the means she has. In
every continent, even in Russia her sisters
are present in their service to the lost, for
the love of Jesus. In 1992 by the election of
the New Superior general, she is prepared to
hand over the responsibility. But she is
re-elected. When in 1996 her health starts to
fail seriously, due to her heart getting worn
out by love and action she expresses the wish
not to continue. On march 13th 1997 the
assembly of sisters elect Sister Nirmala to
continue the beautiful work, for the love of
Jesus.
On september 5th 1997, late in the evening
around 9.30 h, Mother Teresa goes to Heaven in
the Mother house in Calcutta. Totally finished
and worn out, as she had given herself
totally, wholeheartedly, freely and
unconditionally to the service of the poorest
of the poor, for the love of Jesus.
source:
http://www.tisv.be/mt/life.htm#success
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