User:Aplank~enwiki/Mother Teresa

This is my revision of Adam Carr's revision

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Mother Teresa

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, known for most of her life as Mother Teresa, (August 26 1910 - September 5 1997), Catholic nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity, became a figure of veneration within the Catholic church, and admiration beyond it, for her work among the poor of Calcutta. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. But Teresa also became the subject of sustained attacks from some writers, who accused her of misappropriation of funds and exploiting the poor for her own self-promotion. Partly in response to these attacks, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2003.

Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu was born in Uskub, a town in the Ottoman province of Kosovo (now Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia), where her father was a successful contractor. It is usually stated that her parents, Nikolla and Dranafila Bojaxhiu, were Albanian, but it has been suggested that her father may have been of Vlach descent. Her parents were unusual in being Catholics, since most Albanians are either Muslims or Orthodox Christians.

Early Life and work

Many of the detail's of Teresa's early life is unknown. She recounted that she felt a vocation to help the poor from the age of 12, and decided to train for missionary work in India. At 18 she left Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with a mission in Calcutta. She chose the Loreto sisters because of their vocation to provide education for girls. After a few months' training at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dublin she was sent to Darjeeling in India as a novice sister. In 1931, she made her first vows there, choosing the name Teresa in honour of Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux. She took her final vows in May 1937, acquiring the title Mother Teresa.

From 1929 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St Mary's High School in Calcutta, becoming its principal in 1944, but, she later said, the poverty all around her left a deep impression on her mind. In September 1946, by Teresa's own account, she received a calling from God "to serve him among the poorest of the poor." In 1948 she received permission from Pope Pius XII, via the Archbishop of Calcutta, to leave her community and live as an independent nun. She quit the high school and, after a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. Teresa then started an open-air school for homeless children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and received financial support from church organisations and the municipal authorities.

In October 1950 Teresa received permission to start her own order, the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in her own words) "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."

With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the very poor. Soon after she opened another hospice, Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), a home for lepers called Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace), and an orphanage. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanges and leper houses all over India.

In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise to the Congregation, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia and Africa, including even her native Albania. She travelled widely and became a media figure, and this gave her the ability to intervene in international trouble spots. In 1982 during the fighting in Beirut, she convinced the parties to stop fighting so she could rescue 37 sick children.

Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves to her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests.

Teresa as Celebrity

In 1969 the British writer Malcolm Muggeridge, a Catholic convert, made a documentary about Teresa called Something Beautiful for God. This highly complimentary film, and the accompanying book, conferred celebrity status on Teresa, a status made more striking by her image of conspicuous poverty and personal modesty. From this time onwards Teresa received many awards.

In 1971 Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985 and Congressional Medal of Honor (1994, honorary citizenship of the United States (1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities.

Beatification of Mother Teresa

Following Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the first step towards possible canonisation, or sainthood. This process requires the documentation of a miracle. In 2002, the Vatican recognised as a miracle the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Teresa's picture.

This purported miracle attracted considerable controversy. Besra's husband reportedly said that the lump in his wife's adomen was not cured by divine intervention, but by hospital treatment. According to a report in Time magazine, records of her treatment were removed by a member of Mother Teresa's order. The Balurghat Hospital where Besra was treated reported coming under pressure from the missionaries to acknowledge that the healing process was the result of a miracle.

Teresa's was formally beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19 2003, with the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. A second authenticated miracle will be required if she is to proceed to canonisation.

The Pope delivered a homily on Mother Teresa on the occasion of her beatification. He said: "With particular emotion we remember today Mother Teresa, a great servant of the poor, of the Church and of the whole world. Her life is a testimony to the dignity and the privilege of humble service. She had chosen to be not just the least but to be the servant of the least. As a real mother to the poor, she bent down to those suffering various forms of poverty. Her greatness lies in her ability to give without counting the cost, to give 'until it hurts'. Her life was a radical living and a bold proclamation of the Gospel."

External links

Additional Reading

Becky Benenate, Joseph Durepos (eds) Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (Fine Communications, 2000) ISBN 1567314015
Aroup Chatterjee: Mother Teresa. The Final Verdict (Meteor Books, 2003). ISBN 8188248002 Full text (without pictures). Critical examination of Agnes Bojaxhiu's life and work.
Bijal Dwivedi, Mother Teresa: Woman of the Century
Christopher Hitchens: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995) ISBN 185984054X
Susan Shields, "Mother Teresa's House of Illusions". Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 18, Number 1. Online copy.
Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. ISBN 0062508253.
Mother Teresa et al, Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. ISBN 0517201690.
Walter Wüllenweber, "Nehmen ist seliger denn geben. Mutter Teresa - wo sind ihre Millionen?" Stern (illustrated German weekly), September 10, 1998. English translation.